A fascinating process has been underway in Palestinian foreign policy since the Nov. 8, 2016, election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. The Palestinians are trying to make sense of the new international order being shaped, and at the same time they are also formulating plans for the new era. Every step made by the new president is studied, and every declaration by the president undergoes deep analysis by advisers and experts attempting to interpret its real meaning. Together, they draw conclusions and map out action and reaction plans.

One significant operative conclusion has recently come out of the frequent brainstorming at the Muqata, the Palestinian president's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah: The classic negotiating formula created by the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accord, with the Israelis and Palestinians holding a dialogue or direct negotiations under American auspices, is a thing of the past. A Palestinian diplomatic source, speaking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said this conclusion was clear even before Trump took office, but it has now been revalidated.

“There is no longer going to be a case in which the Americans are pushing Israel and the Palestinians into three-way negotiations without additional forces present,” he said. According to him, the rules of the game have changed. It is now clear to all involved that the circle of interests has expanded, and any talks will be conducted within the framework of an international conference involving several of the Arab states and led jointly by the United States and Russia.

The Palestinian thinking relies on two main reasons: The first is a clear understanding that the bitter residues of the past and deep mistrust between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would preclude any serious dialogue between them, and the second is the changes underway in the international arena. On the one hand, the new US administration is dictating game-changing rules, while on the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin is no longer sitting on the sidelines and is displaying a keen interest in becoming a central player in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of the first indications of this frame of mind was a Russian initiative last December to organize a peace conference in Moscow, which never got off the ground due to Netanyahu’s objections and is now being revived by the warming ties between Washington and Moscow.