“I spent much of last week being a Palestinian. And not just any Palestinian. I was the man charged with negotiating their future. Over the course of two full days I was Saeb Erekat, longtime (and now caretaker) negotiations chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, facing off against an Israeli team led by one of Binyamin Netanyahu’s closest confidants. Behind closed doors, and under the watchful eye of Barack Obama’s handpicked envoy, George Mitchell, we argued and haggled over the knottiest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – seeking to find common ground on questions of rights, refugees and recognition as well as security and sovereignty.

I succeeded in extracting from the Israelis an acceptance that the states of Palestine and Israel will be separated by a border reflecting the 1967 lines, more or less, and that Jerusalem will serve as the capital of both nations. Which I considered a rather good week’s work.

Strictly speaking, the names above should all come wrapped in quotation marks. For I was playing the role of Erekat in an elaborate simulation game – alongside a dozen or so people whose professional lives are steeped in the conflict, whether as diplomats, NGO officials, scholars or journalists, from both inside and outside the region. Participants were asked to step outside their comfort zone.”

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