Israel pursued negotiations on both tracks simultaneously, although the members of the official delegation were not aware of the Oslo channel.
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).