BRUSSELS – Palestinian former Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan has urged Italy, France and Spain to play a greater role in the Middle East peace process, insisting that there will be no solution to Isis terrorism without dealing with the “root problem” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

 “Italy, France and Spain and other European countries have always supported the Palestinians and helped Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority a lot,” Dahlan told the Italian Insider in an interview during a Mediterranean Gulf Forum and Atlantic Treaty Association conference on security held in Brussels with NATO policymakers. “We want their role to be more. They have the ability to be effective with the Israelis but they didn’t use it. I don’t know why, perhaps because of the Americans.”

 “They may say they cannot persuade the Israelis to accept the two-state solution because of the terrorists in the streets. But you can’t solve the problem without dealing with the root problem which is the Palestinian Israeli conflict,” Dahlan said.

 Dahlan acknowledged that Isis’s leadership is only the latest in a rash of extremist leaders and countries using the plight of the Palestinian people as a pretext for terrorism and political opportunism.

 “The Palestinian cause was used by the Moslem Brotherhood, by Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden – all are using the Palestinian suffering and cause and distributing information about that suffering on social media but none of them were helping the Palestinians.”

 Implementation of the two-state solution has been stalled for 25 years, he added. “Arafat accepted the two state solution whereby Palestinians would get 20 percent of their land and the Israelis 80 percent.”

 “Netanyahu interprets the two state solution as meaning Israel for the Israelis and the West Bank for the settlers. Netanyahu is destroying this hope called the two state solution by allowing the settlers to take our lands and burning the families. Nobody is doing anything to prevent them.”

 Meanwhile Gaza continues to fester. “Gaza is under siege and they have no right to export or to import. They have no right to go to the West Bank, to go to Jerusalem to go to the Mosque there. There are close to 1.8 million people there. This will explode at some point”.

 Dahlan reiterated his appeal made in his speech to the Mediterranean Gulf Forum urging Nato policymakers to “look at yourselves in the mirror” and tackle Turkey’s ambiguous role in the rise of Isis.

 “I am being frank now. I am not wasting people’s time. We are people from the region and there is no secrecy. The European countries know the role of the Turks. They want to get back the Ottoman Empire using the Moslem Brotherhood (in Egypt) and all of a sudden Sisi came and destroyed their strategy. All Europe knows Turkey is dealing with Daesh commercially.”

 Turkey’s determination to help topple Assad had contributed to regional instability. “When it comes to Syria it is not destroying the regime, it is destroying the country, the nation and the people.”

Dahlan insisted it is possible to separate politics from religion in the Arab world.

"Religion is being misused in politics,"  he added. The moderate Palestinian pundit cited the example of the United Arab Emirates as a model to follow. "This is a country attracting people while offering religious tolerance with both mosques and churches. If you want to build a successful future you need a good example."

 Dahlan, a member of the Fatah Central Committee who was part of the Palestinian negotiating team in the peace process after the Oslo Accords, expressed sadness at the deaths in the Paris attacks that made the conference particularly poignant but cautioned against heavy-handed policies. "The international community has destroyed Iraq, Syria and Libya creating thousands of refugees some of whom become terrorists."

 Dahlan conceded that the raising of the Palestinian flag at the United Nations in New York this year for the first time was a hopeful diplomatic sign but said it was a slim result for 10 years of efforts to kick start the peace process.

 “Abbas raised the flag yet he needs permission from an Israeli girl to get home. We want to raise the flag on a real country.We need a real country not a symbolic one. “

 “We are not looking for a fanatical Palestinian state,” he underlined, “ we want to be open.”