The 'Malay Unity' talks between Umno and PAS have some similarities with the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. Neither side wants to be seen as the bad guy. Both parties would continue to say "yes, we want to meet and talk" and at the same time extract as much mileage as they can get out of it.

One can see that PAS is getting the upper hand and proving that it is equally cunning in the negotiating game during the pre-meeting talks.

It's beginning to backfire on Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who first mooted the idea (after having drained the juices out of the Suqiu affair for whatever it's worth). PAS is getting free exposure in the local press and able to air its grouses in the mainstream media eloquently.

No doubt Umno will twist things around and start painting PAS in a bad light by accusing PAS of putting barriers to the talks and being insincere to the spirit of Malay development, but this can easily be twisted around by PAS by saying that Umno should at least prove its sincerity through its actions rather than rhetoric.

It will be very interesting to observe Mahathir's remarks in the coming few days.

For the general public who are not in the game, they can only dance to the music of Let's twist again.