My interlocutor isn’t a political figure. As a civil servant and a diplomatic expert, he served for 10 consecutive years at the crossroads of Israel’s top-level diplomatic decision-making. Although he no longer serves in this capacity, he is more versed in the details than anyone I know. This week we talked about the “Saudi Initiative,” which later became known as the “Arab Peace Initiative,” noting how over the years, each party — in its respective turn — missed it.

To recall, this initiative was first unveiled by Thomas Friedman from The New York Times following his conversation with the Saudi crown prince in Riyadh in 2002. It addressed the issue of a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world in return for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. It also sought to find a “just and agreed upon” solution to the refugee problem. This happened during the second intifada as Israel’s streets were awash in rivers of blood. Suicide bombers stormed Israelis at coffee shops, on buses and in youth disco clubs. The late Ariel Sharon had just been elected prime minister. His primary mission was to stop the terrible wave of terror. Before the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Sharon did not recognize the Saudi Initiative and refused to refer to it explicitly. He had other fish to fry. His agenda was dominated by a Herculean effort to overcome this unprecedented wave of terrorism, which consisted of dozens and hundreds of suicide bombers storming Israel. This was the first time that the initiative was missed. Israel was wholly responsible for it, albeit there were extenuating circumstances.

Sharon was followed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was ready to recognize the initiative. A right-wing ideologue hailing from the revisionist camp of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, as well as a member of the right-wing, pre-Likud Herut movement, Olmert had taken major strides toward Israel’s centrist circles and then turned even further left, almost as far left as one can go. His 2008 peace proposal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is the most far-reaching proposal that any Israeli leader had ever made. It's highly doubtful whether it could ever be resurrected in the future. In March 2007, during Olmert’s term, the Arab League, at its conference in Beirut, ratified the Saudi Initiative, which became known as the Arab Peace Initiative. Back then, Israeli and Arab officials held many secret meetings, including between Olmert in person and high-ranking Saudi figures. It was decided that a delegation of Arab foreign ministers would arrive in Jerusalem directly from the discussions of the Arab League in Beirut for a special meeting with Olmert to present to him the ratified initiative.

What was on the table was Israeli recognition of the initiative, which would have been followed by the start of regional peace negotiations. Being a lame duck from almost Day One of his term, Olmert hesitated. He needed something to latch onto; some kind of lever on which his qualified “aye” to the initiative could hinge. The two foreign ministers that were supposed to arrive in Jerusalem were Egypt’s Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and Jordan’s Abdul Ilah Khatib. Israel demanded another foreign minister from a country that did not have diplomatic ties with it. Bring the Saudi one, and if this isn't possible, bring one foreign minister from one of the Gulf States, Jerusalem said — show us that you mean it.