There were times when such an announcement by the leader of a right-wing Israeli government would have made front-page headlines: “I am ready now to go to Ramallah or any other place to meet and hold direct negotiations.” This, according to an announcement issued by the prime minister’s office, is what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told representatives of Women Wage Peace on Sept. 1. The prime minister even asked his guests, should they meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to convey him the message that he was willing to renew direct negotiations with him.

There were times when the words “the solution is two states for two people” would have spoiled the media festival over the opening of the school year for Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party and Netanyahu’s coalition partner. On the left, no one even bothered issuing a reaction to the obvious contradiction between the prime minister’s willingness to launch negotiations “without preconditions,” and the unrealistic condition that he stated in the same breath at that meeting, according to which the Palestinian state would recognize Israel as “the national state of the Jewish people.” And, of course, not a word about a freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.

Politicians, like the news editors who ignored the announcement, know full well that the chances of Abbas inviting Netanyahu to the Muqata, the Palestinian Authority headquarters, to conduct negotiations on a peace agreement are akin to the chances of US President Barack Obama inviting him to the White House to discuss the nuclear deal with Iran. Coincidentally — or perhaps not so coincidentally — the announcement about the meeting with the peace activists was issued by the prime minister’s office almost at the same time as the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that Abbas had declared he was stepping down from the leadership of all PLO institutions.

The announcement on Abbas' behalf was made at a meeting of the Fatah central committee, ahead of the Palestinian National Council meeting being convened in Ramallah at the end of next week. Mohammed al-Madani, a member of the Fatah central committee and a close Abbas associate, said the next day that the move was designed to capture the attention of the dormant United States and European Union, and to pass on to them the following message: “I don’t want to hold onto a job that has become a kind of security doorkeeper for Israel, and anyone who wants to assume responsibility is welcome to do so.” Madani also noted that Abbas had even told Jordan’s King Abdullah during their meeting Aug. 30 that he was considering an announcement at the UN General Assembly at the end of September saying he has no interest in heading an authority devoid of sovereignty. So what interest could he have in shaking Netanyahu’s empty hands?