After a year of the negotiations in Washington, there was a widespread perception that they were unworkable in their present from and setting “due to their character as open propaganda diplomacy” . in addition, the PLO was intentionally blocking the official negotiations so as to leave Israel no alternative to direct talk with the PLO. Whenever there was some progress in the official negotiations, the PLO would instruct the Palestinian delegation not to make concessions and to “go back to principles”. The Israeli government, with the late Yitzhak rabin as prime minister, had a keen interest in seeing the negotiations succeed, although some ministers had misgivings about the outcome. One of several factors that made Israel hesitant to establish secret negotiations with the PLO was that Israel, that time, had a law making it illegal to meet with PLO officials. The new Israeli government had presented a bill that would abolish this law,and in December 1992 the bill passed its first reading in the Knesset.