Palestine: words matter, but their meaning matters more

5.     “Oslo Accords II -  means Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip commonly known as Oslo II or Oslo 2 dated 25 September 1995

6.     “Oslo Accords” means “Oslo Accords I” and “Oslo Accords II”

7.     “Bush Roadmap” means – “the two-state solution”

8.     “two-State solution” – means “the Performance Based Roadmap To A Permanent Two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June 2003, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July 2003 and 17 September 2003 Quartet Ministerial statements.”

9.     “Quartet” means “America, European Union (EU), Russia and the United Nations(UN)”

10.  “Jerusalem” means “all of the area that is described in the appendix of the proclamation expanding the borders of municipal Jerusalem beginning the 20th of Sivan 5727 (June 28, 1967), as was given according to the Cities' Ordinance.”

11.  “Palestinian Authority” means “The Palestinian National Authority established in 1994 following Oslo Accords 1 and disbanded on 3 January 2013”.

To the legally uninitiated this may sound like a lot of detailed, unnecessary and technical drafting – but its purpose is quite clear – to ensure when the parties to this dispute use any of the above terms - their meaning is unmistakeably clear.

The proof is in the pudding.

Do President Obama and his Press Secretary – Josh Earnest – agree with the above definitions when they utter these commonly used terms almost daily?

Do Israel’s Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agree with these definitions?

Do the media? Do you?

If indeed there is any disagreement – then the parties need to first reach agreement on their meaning - before they can even think of talking to each other.

Unless everyone is singing from the same hymn book - the music will sound frightfully discordant.