At 22:00 GMT tonight a freeze on Israeli settlements will be lifted, meaning that Israeli settlers in the West Bank will be allowed to continue building homes. The ten month freeze has been credited as creating conditions within which the recent direct peace negotiations between the Palestinian National Authority and Israel, the first in two years, were allowed to restart in early September. Now after just a handful of meetings the issue of Israeli construction has once again emerged as a deal breaker. PNA president Abbas is currently in France of all places having snails with French President Sarkozy while the future of the talks rests with the Israeli PM, Netanyahu who is no doubt steeped in consultation with his advisers over what course to take. This is a major decision for him. If he extends the freeze he will be credited internationally as a peace maker and the talks have a chance of survival, unfortunately his ruling coalition is likely to strongly oppose such an extension and there is a possibility that they may pull their support leading to a collapse of the government, not exactly an enticing prospect for Netanyahu. The easier option will be to allow the settlement construction to continue, thus saving his own neck domestically. However, this course will lead international commentators to question Israel's commitment to peace and will further strain relations with Fatah and the PNA that had shown such promise in recent months. One other interested party will be Hamas, Fatah's main rival, who will be hoping Israel don't extend the freeze and the talks fail. Hamas will benefit greatly from this scenario as they will be able to portray it as another Israeli transgression and Fatah failure to rule the Palestinian people. At the moment there are no clear hints to the direction Netanyahu will go. The world waits for 22:01
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