There is a route out of this Israel-Gaza hell – an intermediary will be crucial to plot it out | Simon Jenkins

No one should be squeamish about a state such as Qatar acting as a broker and bringing Hamas to the table

The BBC reporter was aggressive. How could Qatar possibly play host to representatives of Hamas during the present Israel/Gaza conflict? The Qatari official patiently explained that his country had long acted as an intermediary. It organised prisoner swaps, humanitarian aid and peace initiatives. It negotiated the recent Israeli and US hostage returns. It had mediated conflicts in Afghanistan, Chad, Libya and Sudan. The BBC's challenge might have been, why were these mediations often unsuccessful? But no: the implication was that they were improper.

If there is now to be a way out of the Israel/Gaza conflict, it will need intermediaries, as these wars almost always do. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Paris accords that ended the Vietnam war. It is the 30th of the Oslo accords that achieved peace, for a while, between Israel and Palestine through Norwegian auspices.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist