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Some pronouncements don't sound quite right without being introduced by a "believe it or not" disclaimer.

Such was the column published in November by Israeli writer Aluf Benn. Since the column was published by Haaretz, I doubt many of the viciously anti-Likud newspaper's readers meandered beyond the headline, which read: "Why Netanyahu really does want to advance peace".

It may come as a surprise here as well to those who rely on America's mainstream newspapers -- the ones hemorrhaging readers and can't figure out why -- but Benn's piece was accurate, and soon vindicated by a report on the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine.

Steven Rosen, former foreign policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and currently director of the Washington Project at the Middle East Forum, revealed that after Binyamin Netanyahu made a concession to President Barack Obama on settlements, Netanyahu followed up with "a series of additional concessions to Barack Obama and his Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell" designed to get negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas underway.

In order to launch the discussions, the three parties are working out "terms of reference" (TORs): -- diplospeak for the outline of negotiations. Netanyahu is already on-board, and Mitchell needs to bring Abbas back to the table.

Rosen runs through the issues:

     "Abbas wants to enshrine the 1967 boundary as sacrosanct, even though
     that line was merely a military demarcation after the war that ended in
     1949 and had never been recognized by the Palestinians or anyone else as
     a legal border...."

     "Abbas wants Israeli territorial concessions in Jerusalem as a
     precondition for negotiations.... Mitchell's TORs will include
     implementation of all existing agreements between the parties, as well
     as the 2003 'Roadmap' for a two-state solution. These already define
     Jerusalem as a subject for discussion."

     "Abbas wants an absolute two-year deadline for the achievement of a
     permanent agreement...."

     "Abbas wants language that obliges Israel to repatriate and compensate
     descendents of Palestinians who lost their homes in the upheavals before
     1949...."

     "Abbas wants the 2002 Saudi-initiated Arab Peace Initiative to be the
     basis of negotiations...."

     "The Palestinians eschew the concept of interim agreements because they
     fear that any temporary arrangements will become final.... The Roadmap's
     Phase II already contains 'the option of creating an independent
     Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of
     sovereignty,' and the Oslo Accords are replete with interim steps."

It doesn't take a particularly careful reading to understand the nature of Abbas' intransigence in the face of Bibi's acquiescence. It's the ghost of the Old Man.

In May, GlobalPost correspondent and former Time magazine Jerusalem bureau chief Matt Beynon Rees wrote a column for the Daily Beast Web site called "What Israel Learned From Arafat".

Rees explained: "Specifically, Arafat's favored technique was to pretend something entirely unexpected was actually on the agenda, as a way of deflecting discussion of a topic on which he felt he'd have to concede. It was a big contrast with Netanyahu's confrontational way of doing business. In his decade out of office, however, Netanyahu says he learned a lot and that he's a different kind of prime minister this time. One clear difference: He learned how to pull an Arafat."

Rees was referring to Netanyahu's tactic of turning his acceptance of the existence of a future Palestinian state -- something that everyone took for granted -- into an overcooked performance that could only be described as a circus of seriousness.

It was billed as a grand concession, and temporarily took the heat off of Bibi on the issue of a settlement freeze. Rees called this behavior vintage Arafat -- concede something everyone thinks you already did (or should have), and buy time on tougher issues.

But there's a key difference in this analogy: As we now know, Bibi used his concession as a way to open a much-needed dialogue, and then made it fairly easy to find common ground with the U.S. on any number of important issues. Netanyahu comes to the table to give; Arafat would come to take. Bibi, thinking of his own people, comes to the table to serve; Arafat would come to eat.

Abbas has a chance to chart a new course. But demanding a final agreement, on his own terms, without negotiations is so obviously intended to be what it is: a nonstarter.

"Conventional wisdom" is often the former, rarely the latter. Benn's column and Rosen's report -- neither published by a right wing or conservative news vehicle -- are changing the conventional wisdom on Netanyahu.

Can Bibi be a hawkish peacemaker? Though it sounds like an oxymoron, we know from history that hawks fit naturally into that role; Ronald Reagan used to talk about -- and then delivered -- "peace through strength."

Netanyahu is now proving he believes in both peace and strength. If we can get the U.S. to believe again in strength, and the Palestinian leadership to believe in peace, Israel's efforts won't be stymied by a ghost who offered neither.

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.