Israel's Future Through Moderate Islamic Eyes (II, Part 3)

3. Israel's government (and the US and Western Europe) will be confounded by the continued use of traditional Middle East negotiating techniques, such as: a) present a long list of grievances and demands; b) use proxies, back channels, US allies and other third parties to pressure Israel to negotiate on only some of the Palestinian grievances and demands and also to pressure Israel to defer some of Israel's counter-demands (until some future negotiations); c) use proxies, back channels, off-the-record interviews, etc. to create the impression that the Palestinians are willing to make reciprocal concessions on one or more of Israel's major concerns, thus getting some elements in Israel and the US to conclude that completing a partial deal is nearly within reach; d) recess or terminate the negotiations; e) at that point, take off the table the concessions that were made by Israel and maintain that these offered concessions are merely the starting point for negotiations that will take place in the future; and f) then add to and extend the previous list of grievances and demands. The underlying rationale of this approach is: "If a person can be made to make one step backwards, then he can be made to take one thousand steps backwards."