What now for Middle East peace?

Blair and Arafat's meeting raised hopes of peace

By Middle East analyst Gerald Butt

For a few days it looked as though the door to Middle East peace was inching open.

But the assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi, has effectively slammed the door shut again.

Zeevi's death will reinforce Israeli security demands

It will be left to US President George W Bush and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to work out how and when to put pressure on that door again.

The optimism that the peace process might resume was generated by statements made by Mr Bush and Mr Blair expressing publicly their support for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Both leaders seem to recognise that the war against international terrorism will not succeed while the Arab-Israeli crisis remains unresolved.

Arab leaders have generally made their backing for the war conditional on action being taken on this issue.

Peace opportunity

The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, realised that the aftermath of the US bombings presented an opportunity to get peace talks restarted.

So keen was he to disassociate himself from the mood of anti-American and pro-Osama Bin Laden sentiment in the Arab world that he ordered his security forces to use live bullets to break up demonstrations in Gaza, killing two young men in the process.

An invitation to talks with Mr Blair in London followed.

But leaving diplomacy aside, the biggest obstacle to Middle East peace is the attitude of extremists in the Palestinian and Israeli communities who are determined, for their own very different reasons, to block any deal of the type discussed in recent years.

Derailing tactics

Assassinations, as much as car-bombings and other atrocities, are guaranteed ways of fostering fear and distrust.

The assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish extremist, immediately had the effect of derailing the peace process.

Israel has retaliated by advancing tanks

Up to now, militant Palestinian factions - with Islamic radicals leading the way - have tended to use bombs against Israeli targets.

But encouraged or goaded by Israel's success in killing key members of Palestinian groups over recent months, the militants might now be adopting a similar strategy.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said it assassinated Mr Zeevi in revenge for the killing of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August.

In ordering the arrest of PFLP leaders, Mr Arafat is trying to distance himself from the latest assassination.

Catch 22

The problem now is that the Palestinian leader is powerless to make progress on the diplomatic front unless or until the US and its allies put pressure on Israel to make the necessary territorial concessions for a viable Palestine to be created.

Israel will not accept such a state until it has water-tight guarantees that all militant Islamic groups are under control - and the killing of Mr Zeevi will reinforce its demands on this issue.

Yet Mr Arafat cannot turn on the militants until he has a Palestinian state within his grasp.

Only this possibility would enable him to seek popular support for what could amount to a civil war.

Breaking this vicious circle is the unenviable task facing Western leaders.

The coming days will show whether or not Mr Bush and Mr Blair feel they can exert enough pressure to try to inch the door to peace open again.