Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stance towards restarting negotiations with the Palestinians may have taken a positive turn with the inauguration of the 94-member national unity government.

Since last Monday's dramatic overnight deal struck between Netanyahu and opposition leader and Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz to form the largest coalition government in Israeli history, the prime minister has offered Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas an olive branch of sorts.

On Sunday Netanyahu sent Abbas a letter responding to a similar PNA letter last month, which included, for the first time ever in an official Israeli document, the term "Palestinian state."

"This is a direct result of Kadima entering the government; Kadima is committed to advancing the peace process," Dr. Jonathan Rynhold of Bar-Ilan University told Xinhua on Tuesday. "Netanyahu is now stronger than he was vis a vis the right-wing of his own party and his own coalition, so he can begin to make some moves," Rynhold said.

Mofaz has stated that he would like to the see the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, and it's likely that he demanded influence over the government's policies before joining.

Shlomo Brom, of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that there is an assumption that Netanyahu enlarged his coalition because he wanted to thwart any possibility of coalition parties to his right blocking assorted political initiatives.

"If this assumption is true," Brom said, it would show Netanyahu's intention of changing his policies regarding the Palestinians, and then, trying to find a way back to the negotiating table.

LETTER DIPLOMACY

In the letter that was delivered by Netanyahu's special envoy Isaac Molho, in response to a letter that Abbas sent Netanyahu on April 17, Netanyahu called for the resumption of unconditional peace talks.

Absent from the letter was Netanyahu's request that Abbas recognizes Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Abbas has in the past rejected the demand.

Rynhold said the fact that Netanyahu isn't raising it now might be an indication that he wants to make it easier for Abbas to agree to talks.

"Netanyahu is trying to build a bit of confidence; he trying to show that things have changed a bit and he is testing the water to see if the Palestinians are interested in anything," Rynhold said.

As well, the moves could be offering a chance to see of the Palestinians "...are willing to climb down from there tree -which it doesn't look like right now, but there might be more initiatives from Israel in the pipeline," he added.

Abbas is demanding that Israel halt all settlement construction, which Israel did for ten months in 2010, before resuming negotiations. Many Palestinians see continued settlement construction as the most important political issue with Israel, and Abbas would lose much support should he backtrack on the demand.

PRISON DEALS

In addition to the exchange of letters, Israel on Monday agreed to a request by Abbas to transfer the bodies of 100 Palestinian militants buried in Israel to the PNA, a decision an Israeli official described to the Haaretz daily as a confidence-building gesture.

While these two additional events happened on the same day as the handing over of the letter, Brom warned that there is a human tendency to connect all things that happen at the same time. He said, that in this case, the timing for the prison deal was a coincidence.

"It's not connected to the change in the composition of the government; these negotiations have been underway for already a few weeks and they were managed by the Shabak - Israel's internal security agency - and it has nothing to do with politics," Brom said.

However, he added that "it's possible that the change in the composition of the government indicated that there will be changes also in policy."

BORDERS

Despite the language in Netanyahu's letter, he and Abbas still remain far apart on the issue of borders for a future Palestinian state.

Abbas has demanded that Israel accept the pre-1967 war cease- fire lines as a starting point for talks on borders. Netanyahu, however, has rejected the idea, arguing that it would leave Israel with what he considers "indefensible borders," without the ability to control the border between the West Bank and Jordan.

Israel fears that, without a military presence along it's eastern border, Palestinian militants could freely introduce Grad and Kassam rockets currently being used in attacks from Gaza on southern Israeli cities.

But, from the foothills of the West Bank, even short-range rockets could hit Tel Aviv and the densely-populated center of the country, which contains some 70 percent of the country's 7.8 million residents, strategic military and infrastructure targets, and Israel's chief international gateway airport.