A surplus of mediators have been around all the time, including the heavy weight Quartet of the UN, US, EU and Russia, as well as heaps of terms of reference of UNSC resolutions, bilateral signed accords and "roadmaps," in addition to marathon bilateral talks that have left no stone unearthed, international as well as regional conferences were never on demand to facilitate the "peace process," which has been lavishly financed to keep moving.

However the Palestinian – Israeli peace-making is still elusive as ever as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" has been, without a glimpse of light at the end of the endless tunnel of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory and people.

Palestinian–Israeli peace-making has been for all practical reasons on hold since 2000, and bilateral peace contacts have been dormant since Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009 except for a failed five-round "exploratory" talks hosted by Jordan last January.

The latest indirect exchange of letters between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Netanyahu and the joint statement issued by their corriers pledging mutual commitment to peace are no less misleading: "No peace No War" is still the name of the only game in town, which is in fact the ideal prescription for the implosion or explosion of an unsustainable status quo in the Israeli – occupied Palestinian territories.

And the almost twenty-year old US-led and EU-financed "peace process" is still a non-starter for any feasible, credible or sustainable peace-making in any foreseeable future.

Failure of the "peace process" to deliver is proof enough that it is inherently infertile, but most importantly it is proof enough that there has never been any serious mediation, or the mediators themselves were only either managing a process instead of trying to solve a conflict, were unqualified, or the parameters of their approach were the wrong ones.

The end result however is that all mediators have failed and it is the time to acknowledge their failure and to make room for other options, like sending back the file of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict to the United Nations, which was responsible for creating the conflict in the first place when the UN General Assembly adopted the non-binding resolution No. 181 for partitioning Palestine in 1947, which triggered a series of Arab – Israeli wars, thus undermining its own main mission as the organization created for the sole purpose of maintaining world peace.

Since 1947, the "two-state solution" has been on the agenda. Sixty five years on, none is closer to that end. The US and EU conduct over those years has been in effect to reinforce the "one state solution", i.e. Israel.

Olivia Ward speculated in the Canadian "The Star" on May 1 that the "one-state solution to Mideast peace may arrive by default," but she might not have anticipated it to be a bi-national, bilingual and bi-religious one state for Israelis and Arab Palestinians, Arabic and Hebrew and Jews and Muslims, which is a recipe for apartheid in view of the prevailing balance of power in favor of Israeli Jews in historic Palestine.

I wonder whether USRep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) was completely out of touch with a major foreign-policy reality or was he satirically sarcastic when he responded to a constituent last April by a letter calling for peace negotiations between deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma since 2006?!

The UN option is obviously whatPresidentAbbas is left to try now as the only option available for a man of peace like him, and this is exactly the door which the US administration is determined to close; for this purpose, according to Esther Brimmer, the Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Affairs, in Miami on April 24 this year:

"Over the past several months, we have engaged in a global diplomatic marathon to oppose the Palestinian" option, "because, ... the United States strongly opposes efforts to address final status issues at the United Nations rather than in direct negotiations," which Brimmer's country failed to mediate, revive and resume through the terms of the last three presidents who collectively failed to deliver on their promises to the Palestinians to conclude negotiations on final status issues in 1999 (Bill Clinton), in 2005 (George W. Bush), in 2008 (G.W. Bush again) and within two years of his assuming office (Barak Obama).

Not to honor US promises and pledges to Palestinians could only be interpreted as out of bad faith, bad management of the "peace process" or failure to deliver, which all dictate, as another option, a change of course and that the US monopoly of the sponsorship of peace-making should be discarded and replaced by more efficient peace makers, or that the current US-led peace mediators should be replaced by peace enforcers.

Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars noted on May 11 that, "The only three breakthroughs in the history of Arab-Israeli peacemaking - involving Israeli deals with the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians - came about through secret diplomacy in which Washington wasn't even involved." Miller stopped short of saying that the US and Quartet mediation is no more needed.

The International Crisis Group, in an executive summary on May 7, 2012, concluded that the US-led mediation efforts have "become a collective addiction, ... And so the illusion continues," adding: "All actors are now engaged in a game of make-believe:that a resumption of talks in the current context can lead to success; that an agreement can be reached within a short timeframe; that the Quartet is an effective mediator, ..." On April 26, the American Jewish newspaper "Algemeiner" described the "Middle East Quartet" as "An Institutionalized Failure."

Israel, US and the Quartet mediators are all winners in this "make-believe" non-delivering mediation; the Palestinian people are the only losers.

Palestinians have had enough and now saying enough is enough: Peace is a mirage, peace-making is a failure, peace process is a sham, peace mediators are a fake, and if all the parties involved can enjoy the luxury of "addiction" to the status quo, Palestinians cannot; their survival is at stake.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

 Foreign correspondents have always been revered within journalism. That's why covering Iraq or other wars are assignments so many reporters cultivate. Many see them as a ticket up the media pecking order.

Being "under fire" promises excitement, danger and — let's face it, on TV — precious "face time." Going overseas is often a route to more visibility and better jobs at home on the strength of your "bravery." War reporting can be the macho oxygen of ambition.

Just as covering a turbulent world is attractive in the ranks, up in the suites of media power "foreign news" is, according to Michael Wolff, a 'nostalgist's beat' said to turn off American audiences and tune them out. That's why decision-makers shutter bureaus and redefine news of the world as news of American power in the world. (They also realize financial savings by doing so, of course.)

In an age of globalization, as global news grows more important, it is covered less. The network challenge is how to appear to be covering the world without really covering it. Fox created "the world in a minute"; CNN countered with "the global minute."

For our company Globalvision, now in its 25th year, this downgrading of international reporting represents a threat to our raison d'etre and very existence. When two "network refugees," Rory O' Connor (ex-PBS and CBS) and I (ex-CNN and ABC) launched our enterprise, we believed a changing world demanded more coverage beyond our borders. We saw it as a way to promote understanding, tolerance and peaceful change.

Our response to those who insist "Americans are not interested" was to demonstrate that audiences respond when programs are interesting. We gambled our careers on the notion that world affairs could make for compelling television when produced another way — from the inside out, and the bottom up, by collaborating with colleagues in other countries. We were driven by a moral imperative to document the inspiring struggle for human rights in South Africa and in other hotspots. We learned that telling untold stories moves audiences to care and to act.

We still believe that. And a world of journalists still knock on our door with fascinating stories we all need to know. That was especially true after the events of 9/11 demonstrated the consequences of ignoring grievances elsewhere on our planet. Why people hate us or love us or need us are still urgent themes.

Many polls show Americans want to know more about the world if only because, as a nation of immigrants, many of us have ties to other cultures or business entanglements overseas. Ask the producers of the popular TV newsmagazine "60 Minutes." They'll tell you that ratings do not dip when an international segment airs.

You would think that at a time like this, an experienced award-winning international media company like ours would be needed more than ever. Think again. Why? We face a three-sided axis of indifference.

First, in an age of media consolidation and big media rule, there is less room for maneuver by small, undercapitalized independents. Ventures like ours also find it harder to get our work seen because we're driven by values that question the "bottom line is the only line" mentality of the cartels.

When the economy falters and foundations cut back, the whole indy media sector hangs on by a thread. We feel like ants in a field of elephants.

Second, despite proliferating media choices, there has been a narrowing of diverse voices. Networks increasingly clone each others' conventional wisdom and look-alike formats. When I worked at ABC, we used to joke there was a "homogenizer" in the basement. All too often, homogenized substance-free TV news programs defines us.

In our unbrave media world, critically inflected proposals do not encounter censorship, just respectful assurances that the ideas are good but they are just, sorry, "NFU — not for us." Sadly, journalism itself is branded as old-fashioned by brand-building executives who insist on storytelling packaged in Hollywood-style narrative structure. For them, entertainment trumps information.

Third, when government and media marched in lockstep during the Iraq war, ideological diversity became conspicuous by its absence. On news program after news program, we heard and saw the same "experts," the same conservative pundits, and the same narrowing of story framing.

Suddenly an amoeba-like "Fox effect" infected the entire broadcast spectrum. When "patriotic correctness" dominates, there is an unwelcoming environment for diverse global perspectives, alternative explanations and critical voices. When simplistic "you're either with us or against us" formulations are in, more complex interpretations are out. To survive you either dumb it down or get of town.

A decade ago, PBS told Globalvision that human rights was not a "sufficient organizing principle" for a TV series (unlike cooking!). We went on to produce four years of the hard-hitting series "Rights & Wrongs" anyway. Recently, a PBS station that had been an ally told us that despite AIDS and SARS, a global health series is not a "sufficient organizing principle." The very same words! The world may change but institutional attitudes don't. Today we lack the resources to do it ourselves.

"Blaming the people" for the lack of world coverage is misplaced and easy; acknowledging responsibility demands self-examination and corrective action.