Let's start from the end. Even in 2015, which marks the 10th anniversary of the target date set by the 2003 Road Map of the Quartet (European Union, United States, United Nations and Russia) for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the flag of Palestine will not be flying outside UN headquarters in New York. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the man who cooked up the proposed resolution turning the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a Palestinian state, and sought to serve his stew to the UN Security Council, has decided to put his initiative on the back burner, if not in the deep freezer. Israelis who spoke to him at the end of his lightning visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah on June 22 got the impression that the French diplomat had come to the grim conclusion that there are no serious buyers for the initiative on either side.

Fabius did impart to reporters that “[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu told me he wants negotiations,” taking the trouble to add, “No, this is not a joke, I’m serious.” But an Israeli diplomatic source with knowledge of Fabius' encounters in Jerusalem and Ramallah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu was mostly interested in expressing his dissatisfaction from the French attempt to bypass the deadlocked negotiations. The prime minister warned his guest that Israel would view UN recognition of a Palestinian state as a severe violation of the Oslo Accord, and would thus consider itself relieved of all its commitments to the PA. Not only that, Netanyahu hinted that he would not hesitate to start a media campaign against the French administration over the Palestinian issue, as he did against the Obama administration over Iran.

Fabius also told reporters that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told him at their meeting that he is willing to return to the negotiating table. On the other hand, on July 7, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki announced that the French initiative was off the table and remarked that the Palestinian leadership also had reservations about an alternative French initiative, which exchanges the UN Security Council arena for an international conference that would act to renew negotiations between the sides. In an interview with the official Palestinian radio station The Voice of Palestine, Maliki claimed that France had pulled away from the original initiative under US and Israeli pressure, and concern that dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would damage negotiations with Iran.

The prolonged negotiations with Iran did not prevent Fabius until now from promoting his initiative. Even Israel’s outspoken objection to the internationalization of the conflict, and the Palestinian reservations about several articles of the French proposal, did not weaken the resolve of the French foreign minister. From the outset, France took into account the fact that Netanyahu will do whatever he can to thwart the initiative of accepting Palestine to the UN, and to blacken the image of the French government. The straw that broke the French camel’s back is the chaos in the Palestinian leadership. The saying uttered 15 years ago by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak upon his return in 2000 from talks at Camp David with PLO leader Yasser Arafat that “there’s no Palestinian partner,” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Abbas, who was for the past decade deemed the ultimate partner for resolving the conflict, has turned from being a central component of the solution to a significant part of the problem.