Not that he actually strayed from his unalterable position that no Israeli would live in a Palestinian state. It's just that once again, an American negotiator has been taken in by this clown and is led to believe that Abbas is serious about peace.

He never is. He never was.

J-Post:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas laid out his vision on Monday for the final status of Israeli-Palestinian relations ahead of peace talks due to resume in Washington for the first time in nearly three years.

Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.

For the record, those borders have never been envisioned in any previous agreement, for a Palestinian state.

The forceful statements appeared to challenge mediator US Secretary of State John Kerry's hopes that the terms of the talks, scheduled to begin Monday night over dinner, be kept secret.

"In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli - civilian or soldier - on our lands," Abbas said in a briefing to mostly Egyptian journalists.

"An international, multinational presence like in Sinai, Lebanon and Syria - we are with that," he said, referring to United Nations peacekeeping operations in those places.

He was in Cairo to meet with Egypt's interim president Adli Mansour nearly a month after the country's armed forces ousted his elected predecessor, Mohamed Morsi. He also discussed with senior Egyptian intelligence figures relations between the two governments and the easing of movement of goods and people between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

Israel has previously said it wants to maintain a military presence in the West Bank at the border with Jordan to prevent any influx of weapons that could be used against it.

So, as usual, the "new" negotiations with the Palestinians have gotten off to a fantastic start - if you like train wrecks. The world will keep pushing Israel to make concessions and reach a deal regardless of what it might to do their security. In this case, the 1967 pre-war borders were indefensible - and still would be.

Did anyone tell Secretary Kerry that?