"Permanent status negotiations between the state of Palestine and the State of Israel is what we want to see in 2015," a senior political Palestinian source in Ramallah told Al-Monitor. A long monologue followed about Palestinian frustration with reduced international attention to the Palestinian predicament — a frustration shared by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. What the Palestinians see from their telescope is a weaker US President Barack Obama, Europeans horrified by the Islamic State, Israel more messianic than ever and a self-centered Arab world. They now seek to restart negotiations only from a status of equality with Israel.
The Palestinians refuse to remain, from their point of view, the only country in the world under occupation. The old guard of Fatah — the group that served late PLO leader Yasser Arafat — knows it is their last opportunity. Abbas is 79 years old. The young guard is disillusioned with the path of two decades of futile negotiations; some yearn for an intifada, some want to see the more militant Marwan Barghouti as a main leader and others fall into the arms of Hamas. For many in the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, it's now or never.
