The Tel Aviv-based Re'ut Institute has concluded that the Palestinian Authority (PA) considers itself as having the upper hand with Israel and therefore is less interested in creating a new Arab state under conditions on which Israel has insisted. It stated that Israel is acting on an irrelevant assumption that the PA's primary goal is to create a demilitarized new country within the Jewish state's current borders, based on Israel's security interests, New York Jewish Week editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt reported.
"The Palestinian [Authority] quest to reach statehood has lost momentum and as a result, the willingness of the Palestinians to compromise has also diminished," says Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of Re’ut. Grinstein believes that if and when Israel and the Palestinian Authority sign a formal peace plan, the potential for major violence would be heightened. Terrorist opposition would come out in force after such an agreement, according to Grinstein.