In 1996, negotiations dragged for months. President Hosni Mubarak has made it a point to warn all the parties concerned of the dangers of procrastination. Valuable time is being wasted. Delays can only hurt the peace process.
Delays erode people's confidence in the peace process.
Israeli intransigence sheds dim light on the peace process. Meaningful progress, though, has been made in the past two weeks. The only remaining hurdle is the Israeli refusal to set a date for completion of the redeployments from areas B and C of the West Bank. Palestinians are insisting on this date. Our own view is that it shouldn't be difficult for the Israeli side to honour its commitment to complete its withdrawal from the West Bank by 7 September 1997.