From the beginning, the negotiation process was plagued with obstacles. One of the major ones was the composition of the Palestinian delegation.
Initially, the Palestinians were included in a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, since Israel insisted that there be no separate Palestinian delegation. However, the Palestinians refused to negotiate Palestinian issues within a Jordanian-Palestinian. As a result, a situation dubbed “corridor diplomacy” arose in which the Palestinians preferred to stay outside the negotiation room (in the corridors of the State Department) However, by January 15, 1992, separate negotiations began to take place between the Israeli and Palestinian delegations (Abbas 1995: 88; 1995: 161-168).
Israel also insisted that no PLO officials and no Palestinians from East Jerusalem could be part of the delegation. This was part of an Israeli attempt to create an alternative Palestinian leadership to the PLO. Yet, because the PLO did not officially participate, the Palestinian delegation did not receive a real mandate to negotiate on its own. The PLO had given the delegation a reluctant mandate to pursue the negotiations, because "the peace process was a compulsory track" for the political survival of the PLO (Ashrawi 1995: 184). Behind the scenes, however, the PLO unofficially controlled and instructed the Palestinian delegation. Both former Israeli have Minister Shimon Peres and the Palestinian negotiator Sari Nusseibeih have stated that the Palestinian delegation merely operated as a “fax machine” between Tunis and Washington (1993;).
The negotiations in Washington clearly posed a dilemma for the PLO. If progress was made in the negotiations, the “inside” leadership would become the major player and the PLO’s control would decline. At the same time, if there was no progress in negotiations, there was a risk that the Human would take over and undermine the PLO's legitimacy. Hence, the PLO never clearly defined objectives or strategies for the Palestinian delegation. As a consequence, there was much tension and suspicion between the Palestinian delegation and the PLO. The PLO, in particular, constantly suspected the delegation of attempting to form an alternative leadership to the PLO (Ashrawi 1996: 183).
The Palestinian delegation also had problems of bureaucracy and of coordination. On some occasions, the delegation comprised over a hundred negotiators. The PLO determined its composition, yet did not consider this composition essential because of its own lack of direct participation (awi 1995: 131, 139; Larsen 1995).