A regional peace settlement grounded in Palestinian statehood, international law and mutual security guarantees offers a real alternative to perpetual conflict.

History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s 7 February address in Doha, Qatar ( transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His important and constructive remarks responded to the US call for comprehensive negotiations, and he laid out a sound proposal for peace across the Middle East.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for comprehensive negotiations: “If the Iranians want to meet, we’re ready.” He proposed for talks to include the nuclear issue, Iran’s military capabilities, and its support for proxy groups around the region. On its surface, this sounds like a serious and constructive proposal. The Middle East’s security crises are interconnected, and diplomacy that isolates nuclear issues from broader regional dynamics is unlikely to endure.

On 7 February, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi’s responded to the United States’ proposal for a comprehensive peace. In his speech at the Al Jazeera Forum, the foreign minister addressed the root cause of regional instability – “Palestine… is the defining question of justice in West Asia and beyond” – and he proposed a path forward.

The Foreign Minister’s statement is correct. The failure to resolve the issue of Palestinian statehood has indeed fuelled every major regional conflict since 1948. The Arab-Israeli wars, the rise of anti-Israel militancy, the regional polarisation, and the repeated cycles of violence, all derive from the failure to create a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel. Gaza represents the most devastating chapter in this conflict,........

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