Is Gilad Shalit's Release Resting on a Palestinian Unity Government?

The Associated Press reports today that Palestinian reconciliation talks are stuck--on Israel.

A Hamas spokesman says Palestinian factions trying to hammer out a power-sharing agreement are struggling to reconcile their differences toward peace talks with Israel.

Fawzi Barhoum says the disagreement is one of the key hurdles holding up the formation of a new unity government between the militant Hamas group and the more moderate Fatah faction.

Israel, for its part, seems stuck on a prisoner exchange with Hamas:

Alex Fishman wrote in Yediot Acharonoth today,

With no connection to what was achieved two days ago in Cairo, Israel has been trying in recent weeks to create a sense of advanced negotiations, that we are at a critical stage, that there is a chance that Shalit will be released from captivity even during Olmert's term as prime minister. One spin follows another. Somebody is making sure to throw sand in the public's eyes. Even now there is no certainty that yesterday's negotiations will indeed lead to the talks ending with success soon.

The prisoner exchange deal, which has been in the works for months, has still not reached agreement on the list of prisoners to be released in exchange for Shalit. It also must decide which of those prisoners will be allowed, and which will be forbidden, to enter the Palestinian territories.

An emotional battle over Shalit's price is being waged amongst Israelis. Gilad Shalit's mother, Aviva, pleaded in Ma'ariv:

It's been almost 1,000 days and my son is not with me.

Almost 1,000 nights when I don't see the light in my son's room. Or in my life.

Almost 1,000 mornings when I don't see the smile of a child waking up to a new day. The smile of a boy who loves life. My own smile.

Almost 1,000 days that I am half a human being. Even less. Because my son, my Gilad, is not with me.

Gilad Shalit's parents have been camped out in front of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's house to protest the failure to free their son. But families who lost relatives in terror attacks also held a protest in front of Olmert's house to request that terrorists not be freed.

Dr. Mordechai Keidar presented this position in Israel Hayom:

Annoying. Yet another Israeli family playing on our emotions, with the entire media playing along with this seasonal melodrama and recruiting itself in their service. This is what happened with the son and daughter of the criminal Tannenbaum, this repeated itself over the bodies of the fallen soldiers Regev and Goldwasser, despite everybody's knowing with near certainty from the moment of their abduction that they were dead. And now it's Gilad Shalit. The sad clown photo is already a new low.

Our enemies have learned to play effectively on the sonatas of our broken hearts and the chords of our grief- stricken souls. No one asks the simple question: Are you, the one who calls on Israel to pay the necessary price, willing to be the next victim of the murderers who will be released and who will attempt to prove that nothing has changed after they already killed as they wished? And even if they are caught, their friends will just kidnap another Israeli and again operate their emotional wringer on the weary soul people of Zion.

Could there be a connection between the Fatah-Hamas and the Israel-Hamas deals?

The Associated Press continued:

Hamas is under pressure to mend fences with Fatah to help end the devastating blockade of Gaza imposed by Egypt and Israel and obtain foreign funding to rebuild Gaza.

Releasing prisoners and securing funds to rebuild Gaza with may be a way to prod Hamas into a government that recognizes Israel.

If it wants U.S. funds for rebuilding Gaza, Secretary of State Clinton said, the new Palestinian Government must recognize Israel right to exist.

Barak Ravid reports in Ha'aretz:

Clinton told [Palestinian President] Abbas that Congress will not approve funding of a Palestinian government that does not recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence. She added that if those requirements are not meant the U.S. funded program under the supervision of General Keith Dayton training PA security forces will be axed.

This presents another question: if a Palestinian unity government is not formed in Cairo, what happens to Gazans?