The only constant in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations is renegotiation.

Each agreement, beginning with the Declaration of Principles (aka Oslo), is a prelude to further negotiations and a precursor to a series of subsequent agreements.

These all have timetables that are never honored, and all timelines are subject to rescheduling.

The standard justification is “steps of implementation.”

Phases become stages, stages become steps, and steps become arrangements.

In the same way declarations become guidelines, protocols, memoranda, etc.

Throughout the process, each signed document (regardless of the name) is the subject of further talks to produce more documents that require further negotiations.

And they all need more arrangements to prepare for their actual realization.

We constantly protest that “agreements are signed to be implemented not renegotiated” and then we are drawn into further talks just to discuss the implementation and the new timetable.

All the while, we are armed with American assurances and guarantees that are miraculously transformed into “persuasive” pressures on the Palestinians to score points by exhibiting a “constructive and positive” attitude.

These are all crowned with one photo opportunity after the other. We sign and resign, and sometimes balk at signing. But ultimately, the festivities display handshakes, smiles, testimonials, and further assurances that we are witnessing yet another historical moment that is either a breakthrough itself or is leading us to a new breakthrough.

Anything but a breakdown.

Except for “conditions on the ground.” These have not been placed on hold pending the conclusion of negotiations—particularly on permanent status issues. A breakdown is already in progress.

The “no negotiations with settlements” commitment has been buried by the bulldozers on rapidly filling settlement sites.

The “no negotiations without the release of all prisoners” has been relegated to an isolation cell in the minds of negotiators. Palestinian prisoners have also been incarcerated within racist categories of “blood,” political affiliation, and location.

The outcry over persistent violations of human rights has been postponed—along with the meeting of the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The integrity of permanent status negotiations is framed within a projected framework that may lead to a linkage with unimplemented transitional issues. Unfair trade-offs are liable to flow from one frame into the other.

Yet more committees will be meeting to work out yet more arrangements on pending issues in need of further mechanisms of implementation within a new timeframe that may yet require another signing spectacle.

The “handmaiden” of peace took the new “memorandum” in hand for her meeting in Syria, but the tracks neither met nor competed for her attention.

Palestinian patience is legendary, but it must not be confused with absence of will.

The Wye 2 [K] bug may soon be discovered as a contagious epidemic of self-perpetuating proportions.

Perhaps the time has come for a political vaccine to be administered to both carriers before the bug becomes fatal to peace itself.