An Israeli heresy and yet the core of their thinking regarding negotiation with the Palestinians especially for Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli PM is the oft-repeated phrase ‘let us negotiate “without preconditions” ’. Israelis meanwhile are committing acts of war by continuing their confiscation of the lands of Palestinians building settlements on lands they occupied in 1967 and surrounding the Palestinians with the ‘security ‘fence’ or rather a huge wall with caged check points creating a big prisonfirst built by the former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Besides this they continue the practice of random detentions refuse to release prisoners already detained without specific accusations kill Palestinians based on merely alleged suspicions that they attempted to stab Israelis destroy houses to collectively punish families and refuse to implement existing agreements. Not content with this they continue to blockade the Gaza strip which they bomb whenever they want. They then keep asking Palestinians to join them in negotiations without preconditions!

This is the logic of the powerful against a weak opponent or let us call it logic of someone who wants to legalise the occupation and oppression which has been inflicted by the Israelis on the Palestinians for decades. When the Palestinians refuse to negotiate under such situations they are accused by Netanyahu of being ‘extremists’ and ‘rejecters of peace. So what kind of peace do they want under detentions expansion of settlements confiscations of lands bombings besieging and temperamental killings?

In similar way Mr Staffan De Mistura the UN envoy to Syria is asking the conflicting parties in Syria to negotiate in Geneva (III) without preconditions.

The people in Syria are facing death displacement collective massacre and bombings by Syrian and Russian forces as well as miserable violations to human rights by militias from Iran Afghanistan Iraq Chechnya and ISIS. The humanitarian situation in Syria today is at the mercy of terror practiced by the regime and affiliated militias on one hand and Da’esh Al Nusra Front and other terrorist groups on the other hand. Thus the hope for freedom peace and stability is steadily diminishing as the roar from aircraft explosive barrels and revenge crimes are still much louder than the peace discourse. Then De Mistura comes to ask the opposition groups which are not yet recognised by the regime to sit for negotiations in Geneva (III) without preconditions.

How can opposition groups come to sit with the regime to negotiate under such situations- while the regime and its allies are not showing any sign of good will or steps to build confidence such as stopping the bombings or releasing any of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners?

In addition the influential regional and international powers are still not agreed on who will represent the opposition groups in the negotiations.

De Mistura is willing to bring the parties to Geneva (III) without preconditions. In other words he wants to mix the opposition with supporters of the regime terrorist groups and innocent Syrians.

Ironically the word ‘Mistura’ in Italian language means “Mixture”!!So does ‘Mr. Mixture’ really want to mix up the papers and dilute the whole issue and maintain the current Syrian crisis without solutions? Or is Mr De Mistura dreaming or imitating the Israelis when he is asking different parties to sit down for negotiations without preconditions to bring peace to the people of Syria.

Another ironic aspect is that the abbreviation of the phrase “without precondition” in Arabic is ‘Dasham’ which means ‘military ground fortifications’ and it may have Persian origins while in Arabic it means ‘bad person’. So the existence of ‘Dasham’ in the road of peace process will definitely hinder its way forward. What Mr De Mistura wants is negotiations of Dashamah (a small room built randomly) rather than Dasema (smooth and creamy). Therefore there is not much achievement to be awaited from these negotiations.