Washington Institute fellow David Makovsky has taken to the New York Times to argue that Europe has to follow the example set two years ago by President Obama and, bluntly, make Palestinian leaders and citizens face some difficult truths:

• The only way to achieve Palestinian statehood is through direct, unconditional talks with Israel. The European Union’s council of ministers has said as much in a diplomatic communiqué, but it is not stated so directly to the Palestinians. The United Nations would willingly endorse statehood, but the Security Council has blocked this in the past, and joining Unesco will not lift Israeli control of the West Bank. The Palestinians must try negotiations. The road to statehood runs through peace.
• Both Jews and Arabs have a historical connection to the land, and therefore, it must be shared.
• Any Palestinian refugee can go to the new state of Palestine, but not to Palestine and Israel.
• Israel is not wrong to insist on strict security arrangements. Security is not ancillary to any deal. Just as the world needs to empathize with the Palestinians’ predicament, so too should we see security issues through Israel’s eyes. On the Gaza-Egypt border, tunnels have been used to smuggle rockets into Gaza that have been repeatedly and indiscriminately fired on Israeli cities. It is indisputable that aspects of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 calling for an arms embargo on Hezbollah after the 2006 Lebanon war, were never implemented. Moreover, international peacekeepers cannot be the sole basis of security — as shown by Austria’s recent decision to pull out of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force interposed between Syrian and Israeli forces.

The editorial comes amid diplomatic frustration over the pace of the peace process and Palestinian intransigence. Makovsky also notes that negotiations have come to a standstill because the Palestinians have refused to negotiate seriously over the past four years.