There is something unique about being part of a meeting just inside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and introducing yourself to ten religious leaders, including the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, as someone who has worked with the Maryland Catholic Conference for the last five years on repeal of Maryland’s death penalty.

Especially when my sleep was delayed the night before when a Washington Post reporter called out of the blue to ask about a meeting I had with Governor O’Malley on the issue this summer.

“How minority communities are treated by faiths with more adherents is the litmus test,” commented a rabbi present.

“When every piece of ground is sacred,” I thought to myself, “every piece of ground is fought over.”

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We observed the demonstrable progress in the Palestinian economy and police system as we traveled through Ramallah to meet with Salaam Fayad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

“There is a much better awareness among Israelis of what we are doing,” Fayad declared. “However, more people subscribe to a two-state solution than believe it will actually happen.”

One of the things impressed upon us by many of the leaders and thinkers we’ve met with these past four days: the unwillingness of politcal figures on both sides to come to the “damn table,” as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said.

As an Israeli academic put it at the end of the day, “You can’t prematurely create a Palestinian state under the wrong conditions.”

Israel must demonstrate the merits of that argument to the Jewish Diaspora and the rest of the world.