The so called "road map" to peace is dead. The Palestinians have not stopped terrorist attacks and Israel has not stopped settlement activity.

These were the basic first steps required by the road map. Israel seems to be implementing a unilateral solution with its plan to hand back Gaza. Neither side believes that the other negotiates in good faith.

Ariel Sharon is never even going to offer the Palestinians what they have already turned down at the Taba talks in January 2001. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, seems unwilling to reach any agreement.

Step by step negotiations, always leaving the most difficult issues until last, have now been tried without success so many times that a  totally new approach is needed. The time for an imposed solution has come.

If there is to be a settlement, we all know what it will be:  an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and borders very close to the 1967 borders, evacuation of all Israeli settlements outside the new borders and a very limited right of return for Palestinian refugees with compensation for those who do not return.  These elements were very nearly agreed at Taba.

The international Quartet should start with the position reached at Taba and develop a comprehensive and detailed final settlement covering all the issues.

This would involve discussion with both sides, but where they cannot agree, the Quartet would have to decide what is reasonable.

That final settlement should be set out in a mandatory United Nations security council resolution, which would have the force of international law.

Negotiations would be over and it would no longer be open to either party to use any one issue to bring talks to a halt. The only decision for the parties would be whether or not to implement the settlement.

The Arab League has already stated that it would accept a land for peace deal and recognise Israel.  A lot of arm-twisting would have to be done on both sides, mainly by the US, but they would have the support of the UN security council and the Arab League.

Israel may object that terrorism might continue. The new Palestinian state would be in a far stronger position to arrest terrorists and their support among Palestinians would diminish as their main objective of a state had been achieved.

The UN resolution would impose tough sanctions on those who continue to support terrorism from outside.

The Israelis will have to ask themselves if there would be more or less terrorism than at present.   In the final analysis, Israel will remain the dominant military power in the region.
 
Most Israelis and Palestinians want peace, it is their leaders that stand in the way.

We should insist that the settlement be put to a referendum of both populations.  If either refuses then it will become an issue at their next elections.

We cannot put in an army to enforce the solution, but we can offer peacekeepers, monitors and aid.  If either side eventually refused to implement the solution, then we could just leave it on the table and refuse to make any further efforts as peacemakers.

The alternative is more posturing and delay, while the situation deteriorates. This may suit the Israeli government, who every day create new "facts on the ground" with settlement activity, their "security fence", and the strangulation of the Palestinian economy;  however, at the same time suicide bombings will probably increase, with their dreadful toll of innocent Israeli lives.

This issue poisons our relations with the Arab and Islamic worlds, where we have bigger issues to resolve.

We have tried repeatedly and sincerely to help the parties negotiate a settlement for many years without success.

The time has come to impose a solution which will be in the interests of everyone except the extremists on both sides who will always try to wreck any agreement.   

John Maples is Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon and a member of the Commons foreign affairs select committee.