Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has renewed his call for peace talks with Israel.
Even before new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had spelled out to parliament his programme for government, Mr Abbas said: ‘We are prepared to resume the negotiations immediately.’
And after Mr Olmert's address a spokesman for Mr Abbas' camp, Saeb Erekat, reinforced the message.
‘Mr Olmert should not wait,’ he said.
But he added that the prime minister had to set aside his plans for Israel to keep the main settlement blocs - built in contravention of international law - in the occupied West Bank.
‘Israel can have settlements or peace - but it can't have both,’ Mr Erekat said.
Political deadlock
The new Hamas-run Palestinian government dismissed Mr Olmert's parliamentary address.
From what Ehud Olmert has declared there is nothing to be optimistic about
Mustafa Barghouti
A spokesman said that the pledge to retain major settlements showed Israel was not genuinely interested in negotiations, and that it did not really want a Palestinian partner.
For its part, the Hamas government refuses to recognise the state of Israel or renounce violence.
Although it has largely observed a ceasefire for more than a year, Hamas has made clear that it will not stop other militant groups attacking Israel.
It recently refused to condemn an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed several Israelis.
Mr Olmert indicated in parliament that unless Hamas changed radically there could be no progress between the two sides.
Doubts
But Mr Abbas insists Hamas need not be an obstruction.
He believes that if he could secure a just peace deal his people would endorse it in a referendum.
And you do find some Palestinian observers who believe there is a chance that Mr Olmert might engage with Mr Abbas.
But the overwhelming Palestinian view is that Mr Olmert is not keen to talk.
‘From what he has declared there is nothing to be optimistic about,’ said Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian presidential candidate.
‘Obviously his plan is to impose unilateral agreements and I think that is terrible.’
Palestinian analyst George Giacaman agrees. ‘The Olmert programme is clear - drawing the eastern borders of Israel unilaterally,’ he said.
‘Whatever nods are made in the direction of negotiations are partly due to the position of the Labour party [in the Israeli coalition]. But I think that there is no political process to look forward to.’
'Disaster'
And across the board, Palestinians are appalled by what Mr Olmert calls his ‘convergence’ plan.
It involves Israel ceding some ground, but consolidating its hold on occupied East Jerusalem and the land behind the wall and fence barrier that it is building in the West Bank.
The great majority of settlers would remain on occupied territory.
Mr Olmert has also talked of Israel keeping the strategically important Jordan Valley.
Palestinians would find themselves stripped of some of their best land and water resources. They would be confined to central areas of the West Bank between Israeli-controlled zones.
Palestinian analyst Mahdi Abdel Hadi said this would be a disaster: ‘Another Palestinian catastrophe - another partition of what is left of Palestine.’
It is not just the political classes who talk this way.
‘The plan means taking Palestinian land and dividing it,’ said Mohammad Shaaban, a shopkeeper on Gaza City's al-Wahde Street. ‘We will resist.’