A Palestinian man is strapped to a symbolic cross during a protest on Good Friday against the Israeli separation wall in Al-Ma'sara. (Maan Images)

The last time that Middle East peace seemed within reach, I was working as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team. It was the year 2000 and, even though talks were proceeding at a maddeningly slow pace, hopes were high that we would eventually hammer out a peace agreement.

Just before Easter, in the spring of 2000, I went with a group of friends to see Pope John Paul II say Mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square. I come from a Palestinian Muslim family that fled from Jaffa in 1948, days before Israeli forces invaded. I was joined by my best friend from college, an American Jew from New York, as well as a Palestinian Christian lawyer, a German-Canadian economist, and an Israeli nursing student from Jerusalem. Flanked by thousands of Palestinian Christians, my friends and I stood together in Manger Square and joined the Pope in praying for peace. It was a spectacular spring day, and I recall feeling that our prayers might just be answered.

It is painful to realize that such a gathering would be impossible today. Israel's concrete "separation" wall now snakes through the town of Bethlehem, severing it from Israeli and Palestinian communities in Jerusalem and the surrounding West Bank. Indeed, Palestinian Christians living just a few miles away are unable to visit Manger Square and pray in Bethlehem's ancient churches.

Yet again, however, Palestinians and Israelis again have cause for hope. Two weeks ago, at their annual summit, the heads of all of the Arab states resurrected a deal they first offered Israel five years ago: if Israel withdraws from the Arab lands it occupied in 1967, reaches agreement with the Palestinians on a "just solution of the refugee problem," and consents to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, it can count on peace, recognition and normal relations with all 22 Arab nations.

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Five years ago, Israel rejected the offer and sought unilaterally to impose its own solution. It continued construction of the separation wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, swallowing swathes of West Bank land and destroying Palestinian farms and communities. It removed Jewish soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip, but sealed Gaza's 1.4 million Palestinian inhabitants inside what many call the world's largest open-air prison. These policies have had disastrous results.

The offer of full peace with its Arab neighbors is again on the table. Yet Israel again appears poised to reject it, despite the extraordinary benefits it presents.

First, the peace this plan contemplates is comprehensive. During our last rounds of talks seven years ago, Israeli negotiators expressed the fear that, even if Israel reached a deal with the Palestinians, it would still be vulnerable to attack by others in the region. The Arab peace plan addresses that concern directly, offering full peace with the entire Arab world.

Second, the Arab states call on Israel to do only what is required of it by United Nations resolutions and international law. In addition to ensuring that Palestinians will have sufficient territory and resources with which to build a viable, independent state, the plan offers redress for those Palestinians who lost their homes and property when Israel was established in 1948. That year, more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in fear, losing their homes and property. Their descendants now number in the millions. Many live only miles from their former homes, but they have not been allowed to return.

Indeed, after joining the Palestinian negotiating team in 1999, I became the first person in my family to visit Jaffa in more than fifty years, traveling there as a "tourist" on my American passport. At the same time, Israel welcomes anyone Jewish from anywhere in the world and grants them instant citizenship. Although the Arab peace plan leaves it to the Palestinians and the Israelis to reach agreement on the best way to remedy this injustice, it can no longer be ignored.

Above all, however, what the plan offers is a concrete framework - a set of principles on which a durable peace can be built. It is not enough, at this juncture, merely to speak of a political horizon or to hold uneventful meetings between the parties. The time has come for the international community, led by the United States, to provide the parties with a coherent blueprint for a political settlement of the kind offered by the Arab League -- and for Christians, Muslims and Jews to come together in peace, just as we did seven years ago in Bethlehem.

Omar Dajani was legal advisor to the Palestinians at the Camp David peace talks and later served on the team that developed the 2003 Roadmap to Peace. He currently is a professor at the McGeorge School of Law.