On the Palestinian side, however, there were great difficulties with internal coordination.
The PLO's strategy was to block the official negotiations Washington so as to promote direct Israel-PLO negotiations. The official Palestinian delegation therefore received inconsistent instructions and with progress in the Oslo channel, further "hard -line" instruction were issued.
The PLO wanted to demonstrate to Israel that greater flexibility and greater concessions were possible in the secret back channel (Ashrawi 1995; 183;Steinberg 1994;128).