Palestine - serious negotiations or spurious nonsense?

He says:

He understood from the Americans that there are no changes in the road map. This is an historic opportunity to return to a track of normalcy. We are saying to the Israelis, “follow the map and don't waste time haggling over details”. We must get into the implementation phase. It is vital the two peoples feel something is changing on the ground. In any case nobody will pay attention to this or that reservation.

Abbas was wrong.

America did indeed pay serious attention to Israel’s reservations - as was indicated in the letter President Bush gave to Prime Minister Sharon on April 14, 2004 which stated:

The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

The PA has consistently refused to accept these parameters as defining the goals of the negotiating process.

On November 27, 2007 Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert once again clarified these parameters at Annapolis before the leaders of the international community assembled there when he said:

The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap and the April 14th 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.

The PA clearly is not negotiating on the same wavelength as Israel as it continues to:

• demand the right for millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel;
• refuses to accept the right of any Jews to live in the West Bank;
• attempts to introduce the Saudi Peace Plan into the negotiations;
• refuses to recognise Israel as the national state of the Jewish people; and
• refuses to accept Israel’s Reservations to the Road Map as having any relevance.

Israel and the PA have each been playing the negotiating game under different sets of rules. Until they start to play the game under the same rules, any further talks will - like the talks held since 2003 - prove to be a complete waste of time.