U.S. President George Bush’s State of the Union speech this week offered no new directions out of the crisis in the Middle East. But there is no shortage of voices proposing alternatives. Even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travelled to the Middle East last week to push the Road Map again, influential Arabs and Israelis issued an urgent call for an international peace conference to cut the Gordian Knot of the region’s conflicts.

Sixty Arab and Israeli officials — including a former President of Lebanon, former prime ministers, foreign ministers and parliamentarians, from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria — met in Madrid to mark the 15th anniversary of the Madrid peace process, launched back in late 1991. Many came away from the conference convinced that a comprehensive regional peace deal is both urgent and possible.

Senior officials from Syria made clear that the regime is open to the idea of direct, multilateral negotiations. With members of the present Israeli government coalition sitting across the table, as well as former Ministers Shlomo Ben Ami and Dan Meridor, the Legal Adviser to the Syrian Presidency, Riad Daoudi, told the meeting, “We believe that the repeated calls by Syria to resume peace negotiations according to the Madrid formula express the most important and urgent demand not only for Syria but also for the whole region.”

While the organizers of the meeting had invited participants to the meeting as individuals, and not as government representatives, the message was unmistakable: Syria is ready to talk.

In fact, the message from all Arab and Israeli participants at “Madrid + 15” was remarkably consistent: their peoples are ready to make peace, the outlines of the agreements are known in great detail, and the lessons of the past attempts indicate that a comprehensive agreement must be the objective.

What they meant by “comprehensive” was also quite clear. The region’s conflicts are linked today like never before and any negotiation must be regional, comprehensive — and final. This was the logic of the Arab League Peace Initiative of 2002, which many raised as a good basis on which to move forward. Indeed, the Arab League Initiative took on special status during the conference: it became the hub of possibility, attracting considerable Israeli interest at the “Madrid + 15” meeting.

The need for a comprehensive approach also reflected a majority view that unilateral steps and interim arrangements just don’t work. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami told the meeting that “the dysfunctionality of our political systems on both sides means we are constantly adjusting interim agreements and undermining trust. We need a strong international escort.” Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called “for the urgent convening of an International Peace Conference under the auspices of the UN.”

Where’s Canada?

All of these are messages that should be heeded by Canada in its Middle East diplomacy. Ms Rice’s trip to the region was aimed at getting strong backing from Arab states for the regime in Baghdad in return for renewed U.S. activism in striking a peace deal between Israel and Palestine. But in Madrid this month, many voices compared the present U.S. administration with the months of intense diplomacy by Secretary of State James Baker in the lead-up to the Madrid peace conference in late 1991 and bemoaned the lack of energetic diplomacy today.

All the participants urged U.S. engagement, but most doubted it would happen with the urgency needed. EU Foreign Policy czar Javier Solana told the meeting, “If in the first semester of 2007 we don’t get the process at least framed [âe¦] I have my doubts that we will be able to do it before 2008,” and it may simply be too late by then.

That was a source of real fear for many around the table, for whom every delay brings the region closer to a wider war. Because of this, the participants at Madrid + 15 urged the meeting’s coalition of civil society organizers to start developing a framework immediately to engage the state sponsors of the conference (Spain, Norway, Sweden and Denmark), as well as the Arab states, the EU and the Arab League, as a precursor to U.S. diplomatic engagement and political will.

It is a risky strategy, not least because Israel will have concerns about starting down this road without the U.S., which is its traditional guarantor of security in the region. But, as the region lurches towards new crises, it may be the only realistic way forward.

The role played by the supporting countries and the civil society organizers in Madrid is similar to Canada’s traditional role in Middle East peace processes: to act as a catalyst or facilitator. If Canada is to play an effective role today, it had better assess whether the incremental approach of Secretary Rice is wise or whether it is better to heed the voices from the region in Madrid last week: convene an international conference for regional peace, and do it now.