The offer by a small group of Arab foreign ministers to hand over Palestinian land to Israel — rather than conform to the 1967 borders — that was hailed by some in Israel and the US, is likely to come as a shock to Arabs and Palestinians. It not only marks a departure from the Arab consensus reached in Beirut in 2002, but also sets a grave precedent which the Israelis are likely to once again take advantage of.

The Beirut initiative marked a major Arab compromise: Full normalisation of ties with Israel and renouncing claims to 78 per cent of the historical homeland of Palestinians. In return, the Arabs sought Israeli withdrawal from a meagre 22 per cent of the land, as well as the establishment of occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state and a mutually agreed, just solution for millions of Palestinian refugees that to this day yearn to return to their homes from the squalid camps they now live in. Israel refused the offer and did not even bother to put a counter offer on the table.

Eleven years later, a few Arab foreign ministers have decided to respond to Israel’s intransigence by offering yet another compromise. What is more, this was apparently done without any consultation with the remaining members of the Arab League and perhaps, most importantly, without any consideration of the wishes of the Palestinian people on whose behalf the offer was made.

Speculation is rife in Israel that the offer may mark a gesture by the Arabs of a willingness to return to negotiations. What the Arab League needs to ask itself is whether it is willing to sit at a table with one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history, whose ministers live in the very colonies that the League wants gone. Israel has proven time and again that it is not willing to reciprocate any Arab compromise. Six decades of conflict have taught us that the Arab League has been totally ineffective in the face of Israeli colonisation. There is little doubt that it will not be able to do anything much now. The sooner the League recognises this, the better.