Which side is blocking direct negotiations?

At Foreign Policy, Steve Rosen wonders why President Obama isn’t doing more to press the Palestinians to return to direct talks with Israel:

In refusing to meet with Israel, Abbas is violating one of the most important commitments his predecessor Yasir Arafat made at the start of the Oslo process, which included this pledge to then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Sept. 9, 1993: "The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides, and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations." It is also a direct violation of the pledge that Abbas himself made barely three years ago at the Annapolis conference. As witnessed by foreign ministers of 47 countries on Nov. 27, 2007: "We agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements. We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations."

Abbas is also rejecting the imperative laid down by the Middle East "Quartet" in March 2010, demanding "the resumption, without preconditions, of direct, bilateral negotiations that resolve all final status issues as previously agreed by the parties." It is a repudiation of Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who said, "We do not believe in preconditions. We do not impose them. And we urge others not to impose preconditions." It is a dismissal of an objective considered vital by the Obama administration, to "re-launch negotiations as soon as possible and without preconditions, which is in the interests of everyone in the region." Abbas is spurning all appeals from Clinton, who says that "negotiations between the parties is the only means by which all of the outstanding claims arising out of the conflict can be resolved."

Steve says the new Republican-led House of Representatives may act if Obama does not:

A statute is already in place, requiring sanctions against such violations of the solemn commitments the Palestinians made. The Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002 notes that "Resolution of all outstanding issues in the conflict between the two sides through negotiations" is one of the core commitments to which the Palestinian Authority has obligated itself, and it requires the president to notify Congress of such violations and impose penalties, which may include a "prohibition on United States assistance to the West Bank and Gaza." When it returns to Washington this month, the new Congress may not share Obama’s reluctance to criticize Abbas. With the support of Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the new House in particular may be willing to do something about it.

Abbas’ reported precondition, of course, is the extension of a partial freeze on settlement building. But he might not be the only one with preconditions. We reported last month Newsweek’s scoop that in the three days of direct talks Abbas and Netanyahu held last year, the Israeli prime minister said he would not advance without Abbas’ agreement that Israel maintain at least a temporary security presence in the West Bank as part of an agreement — which amounts to a precondition.

And today, via Didi Remez at Coteret, Ma’ariv has this story:

In the past weeks, Israeli representatives, including Netanyahu, have repeatedly rejected official documents that their Palestinian counterparts have tried to submit to them, with details of the Palestinian positions on all the core issues.  The Israeli representatives are completely unwilling to discuss, read or touch these documents, not to speak of submitting an equivalent Israeli document with the Israeli positions…This completely contradicts the Israeli position, according to which everything is open for negotiation, and Netanyahu is willing to talk about all the core issues and go into a room with Abu Mazen in order to come out of it with an arrangement.  If this is the case, there is no reason for the Israelis not to willingly accept a review of the Palestinian positions in order to present counter-papers that will make it possible to start bridging the gaps.

Ma’ariv quotes Netanyahu aide Yitzhak Molkho as saying that the Israeli government would fall if he even looked at one of the proposals.

I’ve noted previously that talk about "no preconditions" is, generally, disingenuous — all sides have them. Israel has long had preconditions for its talks with the Palestinians — no Hamas participation is one.

What often happens — and what’s happening here — is that if a side can sustain its preconditions long enough, they become woven into the fabric of dialogue and no one remembers that they were "preconditions" in the first place. This allows the side to game the other side’s more recent demands as "preconditions" — and obstructionist. (Syria and Israel have been doing this to each other for 15 years, backing and forthing on whether one side or the other has made even talking about the Golan Heights a "precondition.")

My bet on the next "precondition?" Israel won’t return to talks unless the Palestinians back down from their campaign to secure international recognition of a Palestinian state.