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JERUSALEM-srael is considering relaxing its criteria for releasing Palestinian prisoners, officials said on Monday before the start of another round of peace talks bogged down by disputes over settlements.Easing Israeli restrictions on releasing prisoners with so-called "blood on their hands," a reference to attacks against Israelis, was part of efforts to secure a swap deal with Hamas for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.The proposed criteria changes, which right wing Israeli lawmaker Yuval Steinitz of the main opposition Likud Party said would "strengthen terror," will be discussed at a government meeting on Monday, officials said.Israel's deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, told Israel Radio that Marwan Barghouthi, a Palestinian uprising leader from Fatah who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, could be a candidate for release.Abbas aides said substantive peace talks with Israel would not begin in earnest until Israel committed to halting all settlement activity as called for under the long-stalled "road map" peace plan."There will be one item on the agenda-demanding from Israel to cease settlement (expansion)," said Palestinian Information and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki."We won't proceed a single step during negotiations with Israel without reaching an agreement on complete and comprehensive cessation for settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories," Malki said.The road map also calls on the Palestinians to rein in militants, an obligation that Israel says must be fulfilled in the occupied West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip before a Palestinian state can be established. Hamas seized control of Gaza in June after routing Abbas's secular Fatah forces. Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said there has been no movement towards a deal on Shalit, captured by Gaza militants in June 2006.The first round of peace talks following a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Maryland, opened in discord on December 12 with Abbas demanding Israel drop plans to build some 300 new homes in an area near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Abu Ghneim.Plans for new Israeli settlement building have drawn rare criticism from the United States, as well as the European Union, saying it could undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.NEW PROPOSAL
On the eve of a second round of negotiations on Monday, Israel's Construction Ministry unveiled a proposal to build 740 new homes next year on occupied land near Jerusalem-500 in Har Homa and 240 in the Maale Adumim settlement.The building of Har Homa is seen by the Palestinians as the last rampart in a wall of settlements encircling Arab East Jerusalem, cutting it off from Bethlehem and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians say it is a strategic move by Israel to preempt any possibility of East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state.The road map explicitly calls for a halt to all settlement activity, including so-called "natural growth."Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said Israel would be in compliance with these obligations by not allowing "outward growth" of existing settlements, by preventing new settlements from being built, and by not confiscating any more Palestinian land.But Israel will allow construction within built-up areas of existing settlements. Israel wants to keep Maale Adumim and other large settlement blocs in any peace deal.Abbas is expected to meet Olmert as early as Tuesday to follow up on last month's Annapolis conference in which they set the goal of reaching a statehood deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009.
As in the days of Noah....
