Given that the Palestinian leadership is still formally committed to the Oslo Agreements and it repeatedly declares its sincere intention of reaching a peace agreement with Israel, it must explain the meaning of its demand for recognition of the right to Palestinian self-determination alongside its resolute denial of the same right for the Jewish people and the State of Israel. It will be difficult to counter the argument of those who regard the Palestinian refusal to recognize the right to self-determination of the Jewish people as a manifestation of a lack of the readiness and the maturity required to conclude a true peace treaty, or, in other words, as a sophisticated, toned-down formulation of the "strategy of phases" and the historical yearning for the destruction of the Jewish national entity in the western land of Israel.
