Next month US President George W. Bush proposes to host an international conference in Annapolis, near Washington, in the hope of advancing a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The failure of previous attempts – in Madrid in 1991, in Oslo in 1993 and at Camp David in 2000 – highlights the difficulties. What have we learnt from these failures so that the same errors in judgment do not recur?

The conflict is no longer simply about territories. Israel was ready, in secret negotiations with Syria in the 1990s, to return the Golan Heights. At Camp David in 2000 Israel agreed to a Palestinian state and was prepared to offer the Palestinians 92 per cent of the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but no peace agreement was reached. So if the territories and acceptance of a Palestinian state are not the main problem, what still divides Israelis and Arabs?