Next Sunday in Brussels, the Middle East Quartet will undertake another fool's errand - to cajole Israelis and Palestinians into a negotiating framework with a timetable destined to achieve a durable and lasting peace by the end of 2012.
The Middle East Quartet is a creature of the roadmap, the May 2003 blueprint for Mideast peace that US President, George W Bush, agreed to endorse as a payback to European allies for their support in the Iraq war.
Eight years later, the Quartet is still trying to square the circle.
First, while Israel welcomed the latest diplomatic initiative and reiterated its willingness to resume negotiations immediately, the PA refuses to meet Israeli leaders to negotiate directly. Since September 2008, Palestinians have not negotiated with Israel in good faith.
The Quartet statement of September 23 lays out its ambitious plan by suggesting, initially, that "within a month there will be a preparatory meeting between the parties to agree an agenda and method of proceeding in the negotiation."
In other words, we are already behind schedule.
More importantly, the Quartet "expects the parties to come forward with comprehensive proposals within three months on territory and security, and to have made substantial progress within six months."
This is a wildly optimistic expectation. The truth is, the Palestinians have never made comprehensive proposals aimed at reaching a compromise. They have only stated impossible goals and never budged from them. They have shown some flexibility on security arrangements in the past, but never displayed any flexibility on their demands for territory, Jerusalem, and refugees.
Palestinian leaders have never come forth with a comprehensive peace proposal that fell short of the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state from the Middle East map.
To expect, in the midst of a unilateral bid for statehood, that President Abbas will suddenly discover the peacemaker in himself is naïve. But rest reassured - when the dust settles, everyone will find a way to blame Israel and start over again.
Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies
