The PLO is expecting to hold these cosmetic talks until January 26, after which it is planning a diplomatic offensive to get UN Security Council members to vote to call for a halt in Israeli building across the Green Line.
Abbas is already meeting European leaders to urge them to pressure Israel to stop the settlements and to agree to the "1967 borders" as the basis for negotiations. He is also planning a meeting with Arab leaders next month in light of the "failure" of the current negotiations that he has not yet even begun.
As usual for Arab leaders, when he talks to the West he is blaming his people for his intransigence, saying that the Arab citizens of the territories would never accept any negotiations while Israel continues to build in the settlements. Of course, his people never said a word about it when Abbas himself was negotiating with Israel without any building freeze - it is a pre-condition he created himself around 2008.
It needs to be repeated that Israel only allows building within existing settlement lines, and there is no official support for building in new areas. In fact, just last week the IDF demolished three outposts considered illegal - including one raid at 3 AM - not that this was covered by the mainstream media.