The Guardian has unearthed an important document. It writes:

The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummelled into submission" the UN’s role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.

The 53-page "End of Mission Report" by Alvaro de Soto, the UN’s Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government. It is dated May 5 this year, just before Mr de Soto stepped down.

The details in the confidential report (pdf) are quite eye opening. As it is a long read, I have excerpted what I found the most remarkable passages. (The pdf contains just scans so I had to retype the excerpts. Any errors are thereby mine. The paragraphs are numbered within the original.)

On Gaza disengagement:

[21] .. Since, as I recall, the test of occupation in international law is effective control of the population, few international lawyers contest the assessment that Gaza remains occupied, with its connection to the outside world by land, sea and air remaining in the hands of Israel. The only thing that has really changed is that there are no settlers and no more Israeli boots on the ground – at least not based there.

After Hamas won free and fair elections:

[49] .. I was subjected to a heavy barrage by Welch and Abrams, including ominous innuendo to the effect that if the Secretary-General didn’t encourage a review of projects of UN agencies and programs it could have repercussions when UN budget deliberations took place on Capitol Hill.
…
[51] The devastating consequences of the Quartet position have been well documented …
…
Thus the steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbour Israel have had precisely the opposite effect.

[52] … While the international community demands from the Palestinian government that it should accept "previous aggrements and obligations", Israel deprives the PA of the capacity to deliver basic services to the Plestinian population in violation of one such "previous agreement", as well as its IHL obligations regarding the welfare of the population whose land it occupies. …

[53] … In fact, the PA government is being expected to deliver without having make-or-break attributes of sovereignty such as control of its borders, the monopoly over the use of force, or access to natural resources, let alone regular tax receipts.

[54] In general, the other consequence of Quartet policy has been to take all pressure off Israel. With all focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlment enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated. (In the same time period, the idea has also gained ground in Western public opinion and even some Arab governments that the problem in the region is Iran and the "Shia crescent" – a framing device which tends to mute attention to the Palestinian issue.)

…
[56] … [A] week before [the] Mecca [agreement], the US envoy declared twive in an envoys meeting in Washington how much "I like this violence", referring to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being regulary killed and injured, because "it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas".

He goes on about the Quartet, in effect led by the U.S., and proves it un-evenhandness. de Soto damns the Palestinian violence against Israel and Israeli civilians. He adds:

[75] [I]t is also true that Israeli policies, whether this is intended or not, seem frequently perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants. … I Wonder if Israeli authorities realize that, season after season, they are reaping what they sow, and are systematically pushing along the violence/repression cycle to the point where it is self-propelling.

[76] … There is no doubt, .., that Palestinian terror strengthens the hardliners and weakens the peace camp in Israel. Nevertheless, if Israel was less heavy-handed about the way it conducts its military business and, more to the point, if it was seen to be moving earnestly to end the occupation, I believe it would aid rather than handicap its legitimate fight against terrorism.

There is much more about the quartet and a longer chapter about Syria where he explains how he was not allowed to talk to Syria even though this was part of his mandate. Joshua Landis has the relevant excerpts.

de Soto goes on to explain how the UN is now seen, for very understandable reasons, as partisan and under the influence of the U.S. He warns that this quite justified impression does impede the job given to the UN in its charter and does risk the very lives of UN personal, while at the same time rendering it useless:

[116] [I]f the Secretary-General’s representative for the region – me, in title, until now –  is not allowed to talk to everyone, there is no comparative advantage whatever to placing him in the region. .. [A] sober examination should lead to the conclusion that there isn’t a role for the Secretary-General that would justify the appointment of such an [Middle East] Envoy [at UNHQ]. We are not in the lead, and the role we play is subsidiary at best, dangerous at worst.

If things further fall apart in Palestine and the "siege" by Israel and the quartet continues, de Soto forsees the failure of any two state solution and a drive to a one-state solution.

He predicts that Fatah at one point will likely fall apart and Hamas will continue to have a dominant role. He describes the Israeli body politic as week and doubts that Israel will show any realism dealing with its problems.

The international minders are also very problematic:

[132] Unfortunately, the international community, through a policy hastily laid down, has gone along with Israeli rejectionism, making it very difficult to climb down even if Israel decides to do so.

Remembering an advice James Baker gave him, "Be strong. ..", he says about the U.S.:

[134] … What he was warning against, clearly, was the tendency that exists among U.S. policy makers and even amongst the sturdiest of politicians to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure, and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences.

He sees the same tendency now developing within the UN:

[134] There is a seeming reflex, in any given situation where the UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel and Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take. I confess that I am not entirely exempt from that reflex, and I regret it.

To the end he adds:

There is a broad swathe of Israeli opinion fully aware that time is not on Israel’s side. We are not a friend of Israel if we allow Israel to fall into the self-delusion that the Palestinians are the only ones to blame, or that it can continue blithely to ignore its obligations under existing agreements without paying an international diplomatic price in the short-term, and a bitter price regarding its security and identity in the long-term.

I agree with most of de Soto’s analysis.

Thinking further the biggest danger now is to disable or ignore Hamas. Abbas’ Fatah is incapable of anything but infighting. Hamas has proven to be able to administrate at the local level and did stick to a Hudna, keeping peace, for most of the last two years despite daily Israeli outrages in the West Bank and Gaza. These are serious and resourceful people.

To ignore or decapitate Hamas will push the Palestinians to become more radicalised and to the creation of more violent organisations as the only means left. The Palestinian Authority would desolve and the West Bank and Gaza would become failed territories. This would leave Israel with the sole moral and legal responsibility for all people in Palestine.

At that point Israel would be left with only two ways to go. Creation of one state that includes Jews and Palestinians or a massive expulsion, i.e. forceful ethnic cleansing, of all Palestinians from all land west of the Jordan.

Both solutions would be the end of the Zionist dream.