This article was originally published by Bitterlemons.org and is republished with permission.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat discusses the peace process with local media in Tulkarem. (Mouid Ashqar, Maan Images)

The simultaneous Israeli engagement on so many negotiating fronts is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Israel is conducting negotiations with the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, while also indirectly negotiating ceasefire arrangements with Hamas in Gaza through Egypt. At the same time, Israel is suing for peace with Syria through Turkey and negotiating a prisoner exchange with Hizballah in Lebanon through Germany.

While this is a new development, it is an old objective. In the course of preparing for the peace process in the early 1990s, Israel was pushing for separate tracks of negotiations - with Jordan, with Syria and with the PLO - in addition to separate subject-based tracks such as economic cooperation, water, refugees, etc.

At the time, the Arab parties and the PLO wanted as few tracks as possible in order better to maximize coordination among them. There was always a feeling that Israel would try to take advantage of running different tracks with different partners to weaken the Arab demand that negotiations be based squarely on the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. The current disintegration of a peace process into multiple negotiations processes is therefore a sign of weakness of the Arab parties.

The multiple tracks also reflect the narrow interests of the current Israel leadership rather than an appetite in Israel generally to make peace with as many Arab parties as possible. Most importantly, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister who is facing serious challenges on the domestic front especially since the corruption scandal broke, is trying to gain time for survival purposes. By giving the impression that he is engaged in as many peace-making attempts as possible and that pursuing these would require a continuity of leadership, Olmert hopes to convince both his rivals and the Israeli public that interrupting his career would jeopardize chances for peace with Palestine and Syria as well as the release of captured Israeli soldiers in both Gaza and Lebanon.

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The situation is reminiscent of that immediately after the Camp David talks in 2000 when then prime minister Ehud Barak had already lost his government majority and was effectively a lame duck leader. In an attempt, most observers at the time agreed, to bolster his standing among Israelis, he encouraged "extensive" final status negotiations with Palestinian negotiators in Taba in Egypt.

It did not work then and it will not work now. Successive Israeli leaderships, including the current one, have never educated their public that the price of achieving the legitimate Israeli objectives of peace, security and integration into the region entails recognizing the legitimate objectives of the other sides. These include an end to Israeli control over occupied territories, whether Syrian or Palestinian, allowing for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and finding a just resolution to the refugee problem.

The current context of negotiations on the Palestinian track leaves us with little hope that this process aims to or can achieve anything other than just a process. The multiple processes on several fronts are no different. They are pursued simply as an outcome of domestic Israeli political considerations rather than any true aspiration for peace.

Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons.org family of internet publications. He is vice-president of Birzeit University and a former Palestinian Authority minister of planning.

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