Palestine - lots of talking but little listening

… what Mr. Liel had done was “transparent and honest”. He had reflected the facts as they were. The Coalition Government in Israel today was not up to the two-State solution with the 1967 borders. The Palestinian leadership had reached the same conclusion. But that did not mean the Palestinians should give up.

Mr Erekat’s last comment seemed rather hollow considering the Palestinian Authority’s steadfast refusal to resume negotiations with Israel for the last three months following Israel’s ten-month freeze on residential construction in the West Bank announced last November.

What else can now be possibly done to achieve the “two-state option” - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt - after 16 years of failed diplomacy and negotiations in attempting to make even the slightest breakthrough?

Dr Liel had previously warned in an interview in Asharq Alawsat on March 18, 2008:

… we think that peace with the Palestinians today is unrealistic. There is a split between Hamas and Fatah, and there is a coup in Gaza, which has exacerbated the situation. There are burning issues the present government cannot resolve now, such as the issues of Jerusalem, the refugees, and the borders. These are very difficult issues.

What was true in 2008 is even more valid in 2010. Nothing has changed in those two years.

Further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will assuredly prove to be a complete waste of time and effort. One can reasonably expect the Arab League's endorsement this week of "proximity talks" since Dr Liel made his statement at the Conference will end up going nowhere - if and when they are held. The "unbridgeable gap" is impossible to close.

The Palestinian Authority’s use by date and credentials to negotiate the future sovereignty of the West Bank have well and truly expired.

Yet those present at the Malta Conference continued to repeat the need for the Jewish-Arab conflict to be resolved by the creation of yet another Arab State in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Like ostriches with their heads in the sand - they failed to listen to what Dr Liel and Mr Erekat were telling them.

Perhaps those present at the conference should heed what Dr Liel had to say almost ten years ago on November 1, 2000   when taking up the position of Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in the aftermath of the failed Camp David negotiations brokered by President Clinton:

The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has suffered a terrible blow, just as Israel and the Palestinians were on the very brink of realising their dreams of peace and reconciliation. At the last kilometre of the marathon, as we were nearing the finishing line, Arafat turned around and ran back in the opposite direction. This retrogressive and illogical action goes against the tide of history, it is contrary to the wishes of the international community, and it is surely detrimental to the interests of his own people. Arafat started running in the opposite direction, and he has not stopped for a moment. In doing so, he has harmed the peace process, while undermining his own standing and personal reputation. Arafat has chosen to renounce his status as a statesman, preferring instead to revert to his old role as the leader of a campaign of incitement, violence and terrorism. Arafat has a golden opportunity to lead his people to a new and promising future. Instead, he has taken a dangerous step backwards towards the abyss.

Dr Liel’s words could be just as appropriately applied today to Mahmoud Abbas’s rejection of the peace offer made by Israel’s former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in 2008.

While the international community continues talking - and not listening to those with intimate knowledge and understanding of the hopelessness inherent in bringing the two-state option to fruition - both Jews and Arabs are set to endure a lot more suffering and trauma before the reality sinks in and a new course is charted to try and bring some closure to the conflict.