NEWSMAX / REUTERS: …Abbas had pledged not to seek to join world bodies during the U.S.-brokered negotiations, which are scheduled to run until the end of April and have made little apparent headway so far.
Israel had promised in exchange to free more than 100 prisoners by the end of March, but failed to release the final batch, saying it wanted guarantees that the Palestinians would extend the negotiations beyond the April 29 deadline.
Kerry made an unscheduled visit to Jerusalem on Monday seeking to overcome the impasse by putting together a complex package that included the possible release of Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy jailed in the United States in the 1980s, and hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, as well as a possible partial freeze on Israeli settlement in occupied territory… (more)
