Each time Israel fails to keep its side of the bargain, the Palestinian Authority responds with the same redundant language. The cycle has become so utterly predictable that one wonders why Palestinian Authority officials even bother to protest Israeli action. They must be well aware that their cries, genuine or otherwise, will only fall on deaf ears. They know that their complaints could not possibly contribute to a paradigm shift in Israel’s behaviour, or the US position on it.

In a speech made in early July, for example, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas referred to any direct talks with Israel as futile. Thousands of newspapers and news sites beamed this headline, highlighting the word futile between inverted commas - as if it constituted some kind of earth-shattering revelation. But anyone following the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, already knows that such talks will be futile.

Israel has hardly made secret its lack of desire for a peaceful and just settlement. Abbas, however, has managed to insert his relevance as a player in the conflict, using the word futile. This word has had as much of an impact in Arabic as had in English.

Of course, that does not mean that Abbas has actually adopted a serious change of course. One need not dig up old archives to remember that the PA president felt the same way about the so-called proximity talks with Israel last May.

Before they began, he also expressed his opinion that the talks would be futile. He further insisted that no talks, direct or otherwise, would resume without a complete Israeli halt in settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem. After this grand declaration, Abbas went along with the proximity talks charade, while Palestinian families continued to be uprooted from their homes in their historic city. Only one barrier was removed before embarking on the proximity talks; Abbas and his men quit complai?ing.

Nearly two months later, when it became evident to all that the proximity talks were indeed futile - especially as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu triumphed over US President Barack Obama in his most recent visit to Washington - Abbas finds himself in desperate need for another line of defence. Thus, the new campaign attacking predictably futile direct talks with Israel.

Abbas is not the only actor in this drama. Others have been doing their job as efficiently and as true to form as ever. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who wore several hats in the past and is now one of Abbas’ aides, stated that the PA “will not enter new negotiations that could take more than 10 years”. This promise - that the Palestinian leadership will not be fooled into talks for the sake of talking, with no timeframe - is not the first of its kind to come from Abed Rabbo, and it’s unlikely to be the last.

Abbas’ aide will most likely continue sharing the same tired insight over and over again, because it is the scripted part that any moderate - as in self-seeking - Palestinian official must reiterate to remain relevant. How else could they give the impression that the PA still serves the role of the bulwark against Israeli illegal territorial encroachment and military occupation?

Ahmed Qureia, former Palestinian Authority foreign minister and prime minister, recently spoke at a Hebrew University conference titled “The Israeli-Palestinian Proximity Talks: Lessons from Past Negotiations”.

The conference was organised by Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. The place of and occasion for this conference could not be more significant. First, much of the Hebrew University was built on ethnically cleansed Palestinian land. Second, Qureia spoke at an Israeli University in an occupied city at a time when activists and academics from all over the world, including several from Israel, are leading a cultural and academic boycott of Israeli universities to protes? the terrible role these institutions have played in Israeli violence against Palestinians.

Worse, immediately before his speech, Qureia met with former Israeli foreign minister and acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni. She had ordered and supervised the unprecedented killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. The level of inhumanity she displayed during those days was met with outrage around the world, including from many in Israel. But all the blood was forgotten as “Livni [and] Abu Ala exchange[d] ‘niceties’,” according to The Jerusalem Post.

Just try to imagine the fury that all Palestinians - especially those besieged in destroyed Gaza - must have felt as Qureia and Livni shook hands and smiled for cameras.

The Post reported that “at the conference, Qureia said Netanyahu had not really frozen West Bank settlement construction, and added that Israel’s actions were preventing direct talks”.

Considering the numerous compromises Qureia made through his very attendance of the conference and his handshaking with Livni, one fails to understand the point of such statements.

These empty declarations will have no bearing on the outcome of events, nor will they force Netanyahu and his right-wing government to think twice as they carry on demolishing houses and uprooting trees. But they are more important than ever for the PA, as voices are rising in Washington, in London and elsewhere, demanding that the US and its partners acknowledge, if not “engage” Hamas. Such a prospect is bad news for the West Bank Palestinian leadership, which understands that its relevance to the “peace ?rocess” hinges on the constant dismissal of Hamas.

Therefore, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah will continue to adhere to its methodology: don’t criticise Israel too harshly, so as not to lose favour; follow the US dictates, so as to maintain a moderate status and many privileges; and always give the impression to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that the PA is the one and only defender of Jerusalem.

One wonders how much longer the Palestinian leadership can sustain this act, which is actually an exercise in futility.