Are we living on the same planet?

Sometimes I wonder...are we living on the same planet? Is it not OBVIOUS that one needs to recognize your 'partner' before negotiating with them??? Will someone please enlighten me?

Lieberman: Recognition of Israel a Precondition

(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday asking him to demand that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state before continuing with negotiations. Recognition of Israel as Jewish should be a precondition for any agreement, he said.

PA negotiators said Monday that they would not recognize Israel as Jewish. Recognition could be seen as weakening the PA’s demand that Israel grant citizenship to millions of foreign Arabs descended from those who fled Israel during the War of Independence.

Lieberman said the issue showed that “the dispute isn’t territorial, but rather about the image of the state of Israel: will it be a Jewish democratic state or a state of all of its citizens?” He asked Olmert to raise the issue in the next government session.

As Mark Silverberg put it,

"How's this for an Israeli position at Annapolis:

"Tell you what, if you recognize Israel as a sovereign state in the Middle East, prove you are dismantling your terrorist infrastructures, stop sending your suicide bombers into our cities, towns and marketplaces, stop inciting hatred and spreading blood libels through your media, your mosques, your educational system and throughout your society, stop
Annapolis represents a grave threat to Israel.
brainwashing your children into believing that the fast track to virgins in Paradise requires them to become human grenades, and stop firing missiles at us, then we'll come to the table with a settlement offer that will bring both our societies peace and prosperity."