Peace is still in the interests of both peoples, still supported by both peoples, still wished for by both peoples. But a new approach is required.

My visit to Israel for the Haaretz conference will be my 147th since leaving office. The first eight years were spent working as an ex officio envoy for the Quartet – the international management group comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. This part-time, unpaid role focused in terms of its mandate on the Palestinian economy, and excluded the political process.

Though I left the position earlier this year, I remain heavily involved in efforts to get beyond the impasse, including through my own initiative for the Middle East, which has a more overtly political ambition.

Through this time and all its travails, I have acquired a deep appreciation of the issues and possibly some degree of understanding.

So here are some conclusions.

The heart of the problem is not an inability to solve the so-called core issues – borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem. The solutions to those are pretty clear to most serious observers and participants. If there were trust, goodwill and a sense of potential partnership between Israelis and Palestinians, these issues, although difficult, could be resolved.

It therefore follows that the issue is, rather, about why these qualities do not presently exist and how to create them.

The reason that a conventional peace process – putting the parties in a room and waiting for an agreement – will not work is that over the years since Oslo, two things have happened. In Israeli public opinion, the conventional peace camp has suffered a series of reverses. The second intifada broke the trust between the peoples. The withdrawal from Gaza, including uprooting settlers – in Israeli eyes – was followed not by peace but by rockets and terrorism. The takeover of Gaza by Hamas made a similar withdrawal from the West Bank all the more difficult. From the Israeli perspective, even if the current Palestinian leadership wanted to deliver peace, it couldn’t. Recent events have reemphasized this perception and weakened the credibility President Mahmoud Abbas had in Israel.

Read the article in full at Haaretz.