Fresh debate in Israel

“The Mecca Agreement strongly supports [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas in his mission to deal with the Israelis. The Hamas-Fatah agreement clearly identifies the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as the party entrusted to continue negotiations,” he writes.

With the vast majority of Palestinians, Arab countries, the US and the international community all in agreement on a two-state solution “what is missing now is for the Israelis to agree to begin talks on how to accomplish this goal.”

Brookings Institution Research Fellow Stacie Pettyjohn is more cautious. “The weakness of both Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes it unlikely that final-status negotiations will begin, let along succeed, in the near future,” she says.

“Nevertheless, a Palestinian government founded on the principles of the Mecca Agreement will be more willing and better able to resume meaningful negotiations with Israel. This would lead to interim accords, such as a ceasefire and prisoner exchanges, which would lay the foundation for further diplomacy and help begin a process of rebuilding trust between the parties.”

Mr Abdulhadi agrees. He believes the Palestinian people will not wait another 100 years for a settlement, but may well be prepared to wait another 10 if they see progress being made. From the Palestinian side the three major issues are the 1967 boundaries, the status of Jerusalem and the rights of refugees driven from their land when the Israeli state was set up in 1948.

He optimistically believes that all three sticking points are solvable. In a peaceful two-state solution the 1967 boundaries would be secure for Israel. “Israeli settlers could remain on the West Bank providing they accept Palestinian citizenship,” he says. “Palestinians have lived all over the world, they are happy with the concept of a multicultural society.”

Jerusalem could be the capital for both countries, perhaps under some kind of “international city” status where access to holy sites was guaranteed for all religions.

As for the refugees, most of the originals are dead and their descendants are well established elsewhere - “the economy of Jordan would collapse without them”. He believes that as long as Israel recognises the “concept” of a return, Palestinians will not insist on it in practice.

This is an overly simplistic view of a multi-faceted and engrained problem which has stubbornly refused solution for 60 years, at the same time costing hundreds of thousands of lives and bringing misery and uncertainty to millions more.

It is for this very reason that developments such as the Mecca Agreement should be given careful consideration and not dismissed, in the words of one US diplomat, as “a complication”. The time is ripe for a fresh debate and a little flexible thinking in Israel and around Western capitals.