and peace conferences all along throughout from even before 1948 and most certainly since shows that Israel has many times made unilateral demands/non-negotiable items a condition of discussions/attendance. When peace conferences have taken place they have demanded that only certain people from the Palestinian side could attend or represent the Palestinians for example. Conducting oneself in this way is taking unilateral action.
Going into a negotiation by saying "I will only negotiate the items I am willing to negotiate" is no negotiation at all. It is ultimatum. But the reason people do it is in order to not discuss items, to not be serious with respect to negotiations and to do so because they are largely in control anyway but need the "apparent failure" of negotiations as a guise to do things they wanted anyway. It is to deflect.
Israel is the military power and is in control of what happens in Gaza. Period. The rest of the world can wring their hands as they've done for 75+ years but reality is what matters. The US is not going to do anything to prevent Israel from doing what it wants other than issuing words. The UN will not do anything because the US will veto anything. The other countries in the region are not going to do anything because they do not want a military confrontation with a far superior force. They tried that twice and failed and have since simply resorted to words and behind the scenes support for terrorist groups. So these words and warnings from others about don't do this or that are hollow and everybody in the region knows it. They are being done as a means to give cover for failure to actually be able to do something. No Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza believes these words from the US, Egypt etc. have any trust and it is because 75+ years has proven to them they are right in that conclusion.
When I make my observations about it all it is simply acknowledging the facts of conduct and reality of the past 75+ years. You can be sure that long before the recent discussion of "buffer zone" the national leadership back in Jerusalem was already planning for the reaction by other parties, like the US, and how they were going to publicly counter objections and words to use etc. Nobody should be naive enough to believe that long term plans do not or have not existed that are not what is put out to the public. This stuff doesn't just bump along from day to day to the whims of the desert wind. Plans have been there all along, contingencies and responses calculated and mapped and the only thing missing is the honesty to admit it. But we in the US do the same with all of our relations with other countries as well. As do nearly all countries I'm sure.
The bottom line is that what happens is going to be what Israel wants. I'm just calling charades about some "negotiations" for the charades they are. They are meant for general consumption around the world and a story for the media to write about and a narrative to sell.
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