The widespread assessment in the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet on Wednesday night was that despite the crisis in the negotiations, it is not currently in the Palestinians' interest to throw everything away and stop diplomatic talks. Messages along this line were passed between security officials from both sides. According to this appraisal, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been under pressure these past few days from the upper Palestinian echelon -- led by officials from the Palestine Liberation Organization steering committee -- who demand that he take a much harder line against Israel. This came after the Palestinians spotted an opportunity to squeeze concessions as a result of what Ramallah perceives as Israeli distress over the ramifications if the diplomatic process were to fall apart. The PA is applying pressure mainly about the prisoners, a consensus issue in the Palestinian street. If a deal on the issue is reached, Abbas will be able to chalk up a double victory: the final release of the murderers from the pre-Oslo period, including Israeli Arabs (something even Yasser Arafat couldn't pull off), and also the release of hundreds more prisoners, which will earn him points with the Palestinian public. Israel's security establishment is already gearing up to assemble a list of prisoners to be freed that will comprise in the main women and young men who have less than a year left on their sentences. On Wednesday, security officials stressed that the prisoners to go free would present a "marginal" level of danger and that the security risk in their release would be "completely negligible." The IDF and the Shin Bet are wary of expressing these opinions in public for fear that doing so would be perceived as interfering in the political debate, but backstage there is full consensus among security officials that the possible consequences for Israel's security interests if the talks collapse will be much greater than the price Israel will be asked to pay to extend them. The immediate concern, of course, is cutting off security ties, followed by a rise in violence in the West Bank and in the bigger picture -- a blow to Israel's legitimacy that would lead to actions that would make it difficult for Israel to operate. One senior official summed the matter up by saying: "For now, the story is diplo-politics. If heaven forbid the deal falls apart, the ramifications will be mainly security."
