The shaggy dog story of attempted unity between the rival Hamas terrorist organization and its rival Fatah, headed by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, took another turn towards an agreement Monday with Hamas’s offer offering to free Fatah prisoners and allow the return of Fatah legislators to their homes.

Fatah staged a coup in 2007 when its terrorist militia overcame Fatah’s militia in bloody and deadly clashes in which Fatah forces, trained by the United States, suffered an embarrassing defeat.

The newest move towards unity could make trouble for  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry given Hamas’s declared goal of eliminating Israel, unlike Abbas’s undeclared goal of doing the same through a diplomatic war of attrition.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport around 3 p.m. Thursday, bringing with him the usual traffic headache for motorists who are kept away from the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway while  his cavalcade takes him for a meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Kerry is scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority  chairman Mahmoud Abbas later in the evening and has brought in his suitcase a “framework” agreement.

No one really understand how this “framework” is different from “outlines” and previous roses by another name that state the same core issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and which both sides were supposed to have been talking about for about a decade.

This is the 10th time since last February that Kerry has travelled to Israel. He succeeded in resurrecting the “peace talks” after three years in which it was buried and now is trying to keep his diplomatic racecar speeding ahead  in neutral.

The only tangible results of his efforts have been the Palestinian Authority’s winning the freedom of 86 terrorists, with another 18 to be freed in the spring, and lots of  Israeli announcements but nothing beyond that for new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria and in areas of Jerusalem where the Obama administration considers Jews to be “illegitimate.”

Protesters are marching in the rain in Jerusalem Monday evening and will arrive at the Jerusalem home of one of 16 terrorists to be freed by Israel.

The demonstration is being called the “Umbrella Protest” because of the rain that began falling in Jerusalem Monday afternoon.

Authorities had refused to grant a permit for the demonstration, citing concerns for security, but the Supreme Court overruled them, concluding that fears of clashes with Arabs were not based on enough evidence to bar the demonstrators from the freedom to march. However, the judges said that only 15 families could demonstrate outside the Old City home of the terrorist, Ahmed Khalaf.

One question: The Supreme Court always rules against appeals to stop the government from releasing terrorists, arguing that it does not interfere in matters of security.

So why could it overrule ”concerns of security” and allow the protesters to march but not interfere in the “security” consideration to free terrorists, which actually endangers the peace and safety of Israelis?

Israel’s Supreme Court rejected Thursday evening an appeal by victims of terror to stop the government from going ahead with its plan to free another 26 terrorists on Sunday.

The petitioners, whose parents and three of their brothers and sisters were murdered in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2001, argued that the swap of 1,000 terrorists for the return of Gilad Shalit from captivity proved that many of those release from jail return to terrorism.

The court did not reject or accept the argument and ruled, as in previous cases of government releases of terrorists, that the issue involves security and is not in the jurisdiction of the court to interfere.

The Netanyahu government is going ahead with the third batch four releases of 104 terrorists for the stated reason of continuing talks with the Palestinian Authority, within the framework set down in July by  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Israel will trade 26 more terrorists for between 1,000 and 2,000 new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria, according to a government official quoted by Israeli television Wednesday.

There is a broad consensus in Israel against freeing more terrorists in the four-step release plan to release 104 terrorists and security prisoners during the nine months that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has scheduled for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to reach an agreement on a future PA state without endangering Israeli security.

Kerry has set the rules of the game, and Netanyahu knows that rejecting the release on Sunday of more terrorists, even though PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has not lived up to a promise to play by Kerry’s rules, would leave Israel checkmated in Abbas’ game to have international backing to skip talks and go to the United Nations for recognition. The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the release of the third batch of 104 terrorists.

Netanyahu’s ploy has been to announce new homes every time a batch of terrorists are freed. He did this in July and last month and is about to do so again, infuriating the Palestinian Authority and the European Union but not violating Kerry’s conditions.

Kerry has implied it was assumed that Israel would announce plans for new construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria, even though the United States calls Israelis in those areas “illegitimate.” President Barack Obama has called the settlements, including Palestinian Authority-claimed neighborhoods, in Jerusalem, “illegal.”

The Prime Minister can always climb down from a weak limb simply by announcing new homes but not going through with issuing tenders, particularly since the bureaucratic process for doing so could take months.

When Kerry dug up the remains of the “peace process” in July and forced Israel and Abbas to get back to the so-called negotiating table, he demanded that both sides not issue interim reports on the talks. Israel agreed to release terrorists only if there is progress in talks and if the Palestinian Authority does not resort to more violence.

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday blamed Abbas and the Palestinian Authority for the escalation in terrorist attacks, saying they directly incite Arabs to attack Israelis.

Since July, Palestinian Authority terrorists have murdered at least four Israelis and have carried out numerous other terrorist attacks, not including rock-throwing and fire bombings.

In addition, Abbas and his negotiators have consistently complained that no progress is being made, and he has threatened more than once to end the talks and go to the United Nations.

Kerry has four months left to come back to Washington with a deal.

Former captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit wrote in an open letter that all Israelis should demand that the United States free jailed spy-for-Israel Jonathan Pollard.

Israeli officials have said that the revelation over the weekend that the United States spied on at least two sitting Israeli prime ministers opens the door for Israel to demand the release of Pollard, who has served 29 years of a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

“After Israel has released terrorists with blood on their hands as a gesture to the Palestinians, a return gesture is all that is being requested,” Shalit said in his open letter. “I believe, and I think that like myself all of the People of Israel believe that the Prime Minister’s request for such a simple gesture, the release of Jonathan Pollard, is owed to us by right, and is not a favor,” he wrote.

“Please, everyone, join me, in a clear demand to our friends, the Americans: we have already freed scores of murderous terrorists with blood on their hands at your request – now it is your turn to make a gesture to us! It may even save Pollard’s life,” he wrote.

Shalit appeared to be reacting to reports, including one by Israel’s Channel 2, that Israel is linking a Pollard release to the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and will ask that Pollard’s release be linked to Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners. The third group of prisoners is scheduled to take place at the end of the week. Channel 10 quoted White House officials as saying that freeing Pollard is not on up for discussion

Approximately 3,000 protesters, including Jewish Home party Knesset Members, protested at the Ofer prison near Jerusalem Monday night, where 26 terrorists will be freed during the night.

Their “human chain” has no chance of stopping the release of terrorists, but the demonstrators hope their presence may add enough angry sentiment among Israelis to stop the next release in the four-step program to free 104 terrorists so that the United States can stage and produce the “peace talks” charades.

The Jewish Home party cast aside coalition politics and took a strong ideological stand against Monday night’s release of terrorists.

Party MKs Uri Ariel, who is Minister of Housing, Ayelet Shaked and Shuli Moalem ignored Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s criticism of the Jewish Home’s opposition to the government decision to play along with  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“The Shamgar Committee recommended against releasing prisoners. Why doesn’t the government adopt the report? Releasing prisoners isn’t according to Jewish values,” said Ariel, a veteran MK who consistently has been more honest in backing up his beliefs than have been many previous national religious legislators.

Gila Molcho, sister of Ian Feinberg who was murdered by terrorists in Gaza before the 2005 expulsion, said, “My brother believed justice lies with people, but a great wrong has been done here. His first murderer was released in the course of the Shalit deal, his second murderer was released on the first batch and the third will be released tomorrow.

“We’re not a goodwill gesture, we’re the people of Israel. The Prime Minister must wake up – we’re giving a horrible message here.”

Another relative of a victim of terrorists stated, “My country betrayed me. My brother’s blood was spilled for nothing.”

A Cabinet committee unsurprisingly defeated on Sunday a motion by the Jewish Home to propose a bill that would prevent the government from freeing heavy-duty terrorists.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted 8-5 against the proposal, with Likud, Yesh Atid and Livni’s HaTunah party minsters opposing it and Jewish Home and Yisrael Beiteinu ministers voting for it.

With Justice Minister Tzipi Livni heading the committee, the bill had no chance. Click here to understand how she wears three hats, all of them oversized.

Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a senior Likud member and a close aide to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, characteristically played the role of a sore winner and told Jewish Home Minister Uri Orbach, “If you don’t like it, you can resign.” Sa’ar berated the Jewish Home for daring to propose a bill that would have gone against government policy.

Livni was even cruder with her snipe that the government does not act on the orders “of the rabbis in the West Bank.”

The party stated after the vote, “This is a sad day for the struggle against terrorism in Israel.”

For his part, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not directly mention at the Cabinet meeting Sunday morning the second step in the four-stage plan to free 104 terrorists, a program that started in July to pave the way for the resumption of talks between Israeli negotiators, headed by Livni, and the Palestinian Authority. Instead, he made an undisguised reference to the deal, stating that “promises” must be kept, as reported here in an article on mortar shelling attacks on Israel today.

No one reminded him that he once promised that he never would vote to expel Jews from their homes in Gush Katif. That was before he passed up every effort to vote against the expulsion of 9,000 Jews from Gaza until after was a done deal and his vote did not matter.

Sa’ar and Livni got in their licks, and the terrorists will be released, but the Jewish Home party is far from down and out.

Freeing terrorists, especially for talks and not even for a solider, a civilian or a dead body of one of the two, is decreasingly popular, and it is doubtful that a majority of Israelis are much more than unenthusiastic over the idea.

Every previous release of terrorists has been followed by attacks by several of the same terrorists. Every time, the government finds another reason to say it won’t happen again. Two years ago, it went through he ludicrous procedure of forcing each one to sign on the dotted line, “I will be a good boy, and will not return to terror,” before being free to kill more Israelis, more than 120 at last count.

This time, the government experts on terror says the terrorists are too old to return to terror. Time will tell how they celebrate their birthdays, but it would not wise to attend the party because the cake might blow up in your face.

With every attack by freed terrorists, the voters will remember who voted to free them and who voted to keep them in jail.

But the Jewish Home has a lot of other reasons to be confident that it can buck the government even if it is a member of the coalition.

Every poll in the past several months has shown the party is more and more popular. It has shed the old National Religious Party’s stigma of considering a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as the only thing that matters in the country. Unlike the NRP, Jewish Home and its chairman Naftali Bennett do not “take orders from rabbis.”

It has taken popular stands on civil marriages, leniency towards homosexuality, like it or not, and it has forged into the area of consumer rights, once a monopoly of the Meretz party.

Elections are probably a long time away, but Sa’ar and Livni may end up taking it on the chin.