In recent months, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah was told repeatedly to wait until after the Iran deal for an intervention by the international community in favor of Palestinian statehood. President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior advisers heard this promise from the Americans, the French, the Germans and even the Russians. Visiting the government offices in Ramallah these days, one comes away with the feeling that there, in the aftermath of the agreement, waiting for the international community has become synonymous with “waiting for Godot.”

A senior Fatah official who played a central role in the Oslo Accord and ever since, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that he and virtually all of the Palestinian leadership have given up on the international community doing anything with any timing that will be relevant for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He said, with unconcealed anger, “Both the US and the EU have given Israel a free pass to expand settlement construction in a way that will, already in the near future, make a two-state solution impossible. The last Kerry initiative [2014] was full of good intentions, but it failed because the American administration was attentive to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's demands. President [Barack] Obama was taken aback by the experience and soon may become a 'lame duck' in regards to any major policy initiatives, while the EU is too weak to act on its own.”

This Palestinian source, a man with a lot of experience in peace negotiations, claims that there cannot be effective mediation on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without a prior understanding [of past processes] and acceptance that it may fail. According to him, what brought about the signing of past Israeli-Palestinian agreements were several necessary conditions, as follows.

A first necessary element toward an agreement is the courage of leaders on both sides to make historic decisions according to the land-for-peace formula within a comprehensive peace strategy. A second element is for joint strategizing negotiators to find creative win-win solutions within a common peace strategy. Another necessary condition is forceful backing and intervention on the part of the United States, either at the beginning of the peace process (i.e., the Madrid Conference of 1991) or at the endgame of negotiations (i.e., the Oslo Accord 1993-1996).