It's Meshal's show

[bemildred]

"In a number of hours Meshal will arrive in Egypt." That was the headline on the Internet site of the Egyptian daily al-Ahram on Friday evening. According to one of the paper's senior editors, the source of the information was "an Egyptian government official. We understood that the matter is final." But all the preparations for the "critical visit" went up in smoke when a Hamas spokesman made it clear there were still several issues to clarify, and Meshal would visit Cairo in only a few days.

Meshal is playing not only with Israel's nerves, but also with those of Egypt. This stems mostly from his success in transforming himself into a sort of "super-president" of Palestine: neutralizing the influence of Mahmoud Abbas, tugging at the strings of Arab diplomacy, determining who the authorized mediator (Egypt or Qatar) will be and by being the most active non-partner Israel has. All this when, in retrospect, Israel could have prevented his influence from developing had it agreed, at the right time, to release prisoners into the hands of Abbas or Mubarak. Now, in any solution, Meshal will benefit the most.

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Meshal is demanding that the prisoners released include members of Hamas, while Prime Minister Olmert is adamant they not be included. The exiled Hamas leader would also like to see Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council released, thus scoring points in the Fatah camp.

Meshal also insists that the release of the prisoners coincides with the release of Gilad Shalit, and not come later, thus preventing Israel from claiming that the freeing of prisoners had nothing to do with the release of the Israel Defense Forces soldier.

Haaretz