Mr Ali Halimeh would like his old house back. It is the family home in what is now northern Israel and it was vacated by his parents when they fled as refugees from the 1948 war which marked the foundation of the Israeli state.

The Halimehs settled in Lebanon, where Ali was born and grew up, but despite his surroundings he was in no doubt about his nationality. "I have always been a Palestinian and will remain a Palestinian until I die," he says.

He joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1969 and in time became part of the PLO's fledgling foreign service. He was posted to Tanzania as a counsellor in 1977, becoming head of mission in 1979. Mr Halimeh was the first Palestinian ambassador to Zimbabwe in 1983. As the longest-serving ambassador, he was dean of the diplomatic corps in Harare when he left for Ireland this year.

After the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, he was able to visit his homeland for the first time and called to the door of the family home, but the new Israeli residents did not invite him in.

He approached an Israeli government official to ask: "Can I go and pay for it and take my wife and two children and settle there?" He even got the go-ahead from Yasser Arafat. "But the Israelis said: `If we allow you back, we will also have to allow millions of other Palestinians.'"

It is yet another minor tragedy in the mosaic of sadness that is today's Middle East. It meant he stayed another eight years in Harare before the untimely death of the popular Mr Yusif Allen brought Mr Halimeh to Dublin as Palestinian Delegate-General, which gives him "functioning ambassador status".

Having spent 18 years in Zimbabwe, he does not subscribe to the prevailing media and political consensus against the Mugabe regime. "Mugabe and the people of Zimbabwe are entitled to control their land, but maybe we differ sometimes with the methods by which this is being implemented . . . Let me tell you that 4,500 commercial white farmers own 75 per cent of the viable land of Zimbabwe."

But affairs nearer home are a greater worry. He was acquainted with Mr Abu Ali Mustafa, a.k.a. Mr Mustafa Zibri, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who died in a recent Israeli missile attack. "I met him actually last September at a lunch hosted by President Arafat at the President's office," he recalls. "It is a blow to the PLO, losing such a cadre, a politician, a humble, intelligent man."

He says the decision by the PFLP leader to move from exile in Damascus to the Palestinian territories to work with President Arafat showed that he wanted to go forward by political means rather than violence.

An Israeli spokesman said of Mr Zibri: "The man's resume is soaked in the blood of his victims." But Mr Halimeh is angered by such allegations. "They are telling lies. Terrorism is part of the political culture of Israel. We have been used to the Israeli state terrorism since it has been established in 1948. Now don't let them come and tell us that we are terrorists. We know who Sharon is himself from Day One, when he became a soldier in the Israeli army," he says.

He claims senior Israeli politicians have been involved in slaughtering Palestinians. His assessment is: "There is no political leadership in Israel. Those who are running the affairs of Israel are the military." Prime Minister Sharon and Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mohfaz are running the show.

This is where Ireland and the other EU states come in. "Europe has more responsibility now than ever before" he says. "If they allow this situation to escalate, it is going to be disastrous for all of us."

The killing of a leader such as Mr Zibri gave the situation "a very serious and dangerous dimension", he continues. "If you are targeting and killing those political leaders, then who do you want to negotiate with: soldiers in the street, the police? It shows that the Israeli government has no political agenda, no programme."

I quote from an article by Mr Leslie Susser in the monthly Jerusalem Report, which stated that the general Israeli assessment was as follows: "Arafat is in control of the intifada and will continue to abet terror and resist serious peace talks for a long time to come." Mr Halimeh responds that a man such as Mr Arafat who risked his political career in 1993 to sign the Oslo Agreement was hardly going to oppose genuine peace talks.

"If the peace talks are going to be on the terms of the Israelis only and they are the ones going to design and orchestrate them and put all the framework and conditions in place, yes, we will resist them. We want a peace which is based on the Oslo Agreement, the relevant UN resolutions and justice. Three things: UN, Oslo, justice - if there is justice in this world still."

It was extremely important that the decision taken at the G8 summit in Genoa to deploy international monitors on the ground should be implemented forthwith. "We need a third party. In any dispute, in any conflict, the third party should be present."

Mr Halimeh would prefer US monitors. "Let them come there and witness for themselves what is happening, because the Americans always pretend they don't know and don't see, although they know and see better than anybody else in this world . . . I may not trust them, but let them come. It is not a question of trust," he says.

He is dismissive of the current US administration. "Bush is acting as a public relations officer for the Israeli cabinet. He is the official spokesman of Mr Sharon."

There was a "big difference for the worse" from the days of the Clinton White House. He is very disappointed with Secretary of State Colin Powell and charges Vice-President Dick Cheney with "heading an opposition to anything which will satisfy the basic needs of the Palestinian people".

He says the US and the EU should invite Mr Sharon and Mr Arafat to negotiations in one of their capitals and "force them to talk to each other. They don't need to shake hands together".

The Palestinian cause has suffered in the eyes of public opinion because of the horrific practice of suicide bombing, but Mr Halimeh disowns this "primitive" tactic.

"We do not advocate and we do not justify it ourselves and I am one of those who never, ever in his life advocated that," he says. But he is conscious of the "frustration and anger and helplessness" which he says drives those young people to such desperate acts.

Europe could help find a way out. "I cannot see why Europe has to always stay behind the US. They say: `We cannot do much because the US doesn't want us to'; but Europe has to be sometimes free of American pressure and do something in relation to us."

Deaglan de Breadun is Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times