Despite Israel's insistence on carrying out its illegal, land-grabbing policies in the West Bank and occupied east Jerusalem, Palestinians have disappointingly agreed to a new peace initiative that involves the US's George Mitchell shuttling back and forth between the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation's Executive Committee met last week to decide on whether to agree to another round of proximity talks or go a different route altogether and, perhaps rather naively, took the US administration's "assurances" as a guarantee that Israel will not engage in "provocative" actions.
One cannot help but wonder when was the last time Israel has taken into consideration either Palestinians' rightful demands or even the US's requests? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blatantly refused to show any signs of backing down from his hawkish and harmful colony policies and said the talks would begin "without preconditions".
It seems Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has bowed to US pressure in order to win Obama over and boost his peace initiative. But to do so at the expense of the Palestinian people is mind-boggling. For years, Palestinians and Israelis have met directly only to get nowhere. Why would indirect talks be successful?
