Liberal foreign affairs and international trade critic Marc Garneau says he has gained a better insight into perspectives on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after his first official visit to the Middle East.

Speaking by phone from Cairo after spending two days in Israel and one day in the West Bank, Garneau said that speaking to Israelis and Palestinians in the wake of the collapse of the U.S.-brokered attempt to renew peace talks was instructive.

“Each feels it didn’t work because there was not a willingness to compromise to an extent acceptable to both,” he said. “Each felt the other side was not willing to give enough.”

Yet, he has the sense that “things are evolving. They are not static.”

The highest-ranking Israeli official he met was Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, and in the Palestinian territories, Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah representative and chief negotiator with Hamas in trying to form a unity government between the two factions.

Garneau’s scheduled meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was cancelled the day before, apparently because a meeting May 15 with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in London, the first since the process broke off in April, had been scheduled.

Garneau described his trip, which also included Egypt and Jordan, as a “fact-

finding” in nature.

He found useful hearing Israeli officials’ assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and the United Nations Security Council’s role in containing it, as well as of the Syrian civil strife.

Also informative was his discussion with former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, now associated with the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya.

Garneau had visited Israel twice before: in 2003, while president of the Canadian Space Agency, and in 2009, a year after he was elected MP for the Montreal riding of Westmount–Ville Marie, on a Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs-organized trip.

Garneau said some of his Palestinian interlocutors claimed the current Canadian government is unbalanced in its approach to the conflict and biased toward Israel.

He was interviewed by the editor-in-chief of the Ramallah daily newspaper Al-Ayyam, Akram Haniyya, and had dinner with Palestinian business people.

Garneau, who was careful in his answers, said that despite, the “perception,” there is “no substantive difference” between the Conservative and Liberal parties on the key issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both parties support a two-state solution.

“In substance, it’s essentially the same. The only difference perhaps is the way it is put forward,” he said.

“We certainly do not want to make [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] a wedge issue, but rather take reasoned positions.”

Garneau, a retired naval officer and engineer, was the first Canadian astronaut to fly in outer space 30 years ago.

He especially enjoyed the parts of his visit that pertained to these areas. He toured Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov Airport, which is used by the Israeli Air Force for intelligence gathering operations on the borders, and meeting with Col. Salman Zarka, a physician, who headed the field hospital on the Golan Heights that has treated wounded Syrians.

Conversing with Menahem Kidron, head of the Israel Space Agency was gratifying, Garneau said.

“I went to Israel in 2003 to start a discussion on possible co-operation between the space agencies, but when I went into politics, I gave that up. I was happy to hear that current Canadian Space Agency president Gen. Walter Natynczyk [former chief of the defence staff] is keeping that up.”

Garneau met with Rona Ramon, widow of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the fatal 2003 Columbia space launch. Garneau had been friendly with Ramon since they trained together in Houston.

Garneau gave a talk on “An Astronaut’s View of Peace” at the Institute for National Security Studies, in which he described how being in outer space changed his perspective of what goes on on Earth.

The Palestinians were similarly interested in Garneau’s expertise on space. He spoke on a radio science program and at two high schools on the subject.

A highlight of his day in the West Bank was touring Rawabi, a planned town in the hills where up to 20,000 people will live. “It’s very modern, very green, very wired… quite spectacular,” Garneau said.

“I found that having direct, face-to-face contact with the different players has allowed me to get beyond what’s in the media,” Garneau concluded. “Overall, I’m very pleased.”

The goal of the Liberal party, if it forms the next government, will be to “see if there is anything we can constructively do to bring the two groups together. But we’re a middle power. We are cognizant that we do not have as much clout, for example, as the U.S.”