The only thing that everybody agreed on at the end of the much awaited trilateral US-Palestinian-Arab meeting in Amman and the set of US-Palestinian meetings, is that ambiguity still prevailed. This is how one can sum up Secretary of State John Kerry's sixth visit to the region to meet with the Palestinian leadership and the Arab League follow-up committee on the Palestinian issue after the first meeting that took place in Washington on April 29.
The Palestinian leadership could not afford to say a straight “no” to the Kerry mission because it risks putting an end to his peace efforts, something it has been yearning for for some time now, urging the US administration repeatedly to restart negotiations. So it is a "yes but," sending its strong reservations, namely via the leaked PLO intensive discussions on the issue and the one-day delay about the absence in the Kerry proposal of a clear commitment on the part of Israel: A commitment to accept the June 4, 1967, border line as the basis for restarting serious negotiations leading to the establishment of the Palestinian state.
In exchange for that, the PNA would accept the principle of limited land swap — one that is symmetrical qualitatively and quantitatively and that will be done in the context of negotiations. Such a principle would allow issue of major settlements to be successfully addressed. Kerry’s proposal was based on ambiguity of the language. Some described his approach for takeoff as based on unwritten commitments or undeclared incentives. Buying time to maintain the momentum for resuming the negotiations, according to Kerry’s mission, constitutes a sort of an understanding for the parties to the Amman meetings.
Kerry’s commitment to the need to make peace and his conviction that there is an opportunity to do so are not enough for a serious takeoff. The well-known defunct peace process has been a way of managing the conflict and containing possible escalation while allowing developments on the land that were sabotaging the final goals of the process. Many factors work against a serious takeoff on a different basis from past ones.
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