The "Geneva Agreement"

Yeah, this one is all set to join a grand tradition of failed accords between Israel and the palestinians. But there's one difference. None of the parties to this one have even an iota of authority from anyone but their own bloated egos to enter into any agreement on behalf of anyone.

Well, I can't speak for the Palestinian Authority, I guess. The chain of command, representation and legal authority of that basic non-entity is kind of, like, murky? But Israel, a recognized nation and a democracy, has elected leaders who possess exclusive power to negotiate on behalf of their constituencies.

And Yossi Beilin isn't one of them.

So let's keep score, shall we? The text of the secret agreement, which hasn't been signed, hasn't been officially released, either, but the terms are generally known.

As of this morning, the palestinian "leadership" was supposedly dissing the "Agreement" big time:

Palestinian leaders condemn “Swiss Accord”

Occupied Jerusalem: 13 October, 2003 (IAP News)

The so-called “Geneva Agreement” or “Swiss Accord” has triggered strong reactions from Palestinian public leaders who dismissed it “as unbinding to the Palestinian people.”

The agreement, formulated in Geneva last week by a group of Palestinian and Zionist figures, including former officials, effectively concedes the right of return for some five million Palestinian refugees in exchange for Palestinian statehood.

“This agreement represents the views of those who signed it, it doesn’t represent the views of the Palestinian people,” said Jamil Majdalawi, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Majdalawi pointed out that the Right of Return represented the central aspect of the Palestinian cause, adding that sacrificing that right meant killing the entire Palestinian cause.

“The right of return is the heart of the Palestinian problem.”

He called the Geneva document a “corruption of the Oslo Accords as the Oslo Accords were a corruption of UN resolution 242.”

But if you continue reading, you find that there was "no official reaction to the accords from the Palestinian Authority."

By this evening, the story had changed:

Palestinian Authority officials: Arafat okayed Geneva Accord

Top Palestinian Authority officials confirmed Monday that Yasser Arafat was briefed about details of the Geneva Accord before it was finalized, and gave a positive nod to the peace proposal after it was completed.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, the former PA minister who headed the group of unofficial Palestinian negotiators, is a very close associate of Arafat's, and there is no chance he would have gone ahead with the talks without the PA chairman's approval, the Palestinian leaders emphasized.

Terms formulated in the Geneva Accord do not contradict well-known positions officially upheld by the PA, the officials claimed.

There seems to be some confusion here. There seems to be some classic "good terrorist, bad terrorist" play here. There seems to be some serious idiocy here.

Remember Beilin-Mazen? That was also an "agreement," reached without authorization, between the same Israeli twit claiming responsibility for the latest lunacy and the now-former-palestinian-prime-minister-before-he-had-a-portfolio Abu Mazen. That was back in 1995.

1995.

Something is seriously amiss in the world. Yossi Beilin and his co-dependent supporters are badly in need of a rubber room somewhere, some really powerful medication and plenty of well-muscled security guards. And the media may need a dose of shock treatment as well if it keeps insisting on taking these antics seriously.

So much for holiday spirit.