Mid-East peace: false dawn or new day?

by Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

The handshake by the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas inevitably brings reminders of two other notable encounters between Israeli and Arab leaders.

It is not yet clear which model this meeting will follow.

Will it be the handshake on the White House lawn in 1979 between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat? That led to peace between Israel and Egypt, a peace which may not have been warm but which has endured.

The two men met spoke the language of peace

Or will it be the 1993 handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, also on the White House lawn. That was to celebrate the Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians which held such hopes but which collapsed soon afterwards.

There are those who think that, at last, there will be peace.

When I was based in Jerusalem in the mid-1980s, I used to go to Nablus to meet a lecturer at an-Najah University - Saeb Erekat.

Over lunch in the souk he would talk about the need for mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians. It was quite advanced talk for the time. He subsequently became close to Yasser Arafat and was appointed the chief Palestinian negotiator.

He was in London recently, still optimistic despite the dark days and deeds.

No more war, no more bloodshed. Enough suffering, enough death and enough pain. Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian prime minister

"I have seen beyond the peace process to peace," he told me, referring to the discussions he had had with Israeli officials during the negotiations which so nearly succeeded at Camp David and afterwards at Taba in 2000.

"It can work."

A new sense of reality

Perhaps the best thing to be said about this latest meeting is that there is a new sense of reality.

The Palestinian prime minister signalled that by going to Mr Sharon's own office in the heart of West Jerusalem.

There were no flags but he did speak from a podium with the symbol of the State of Israel on it.

Dissident Palestinians have challenged the ceasefire

Mahmoud Abbas sent the Israelis a message of peace: "No more war, no more bloodshed. Enough suffering, enough death and enough pain."

Mr Sharon, too, spoke the language of peace, as once did Mr Begin, who also led the Likud party: "Even if we are required to make painful compromises, I will be willing to make them for the sake of true peace - a peace for generations, the peace that we all yearn for."

But nice words do not an agreement make, especially in the Middle East.

What for Mr Sharon might be painful - the abandoning of some settlements and the end of the old dream of an Israeli state from Mediterranean Sea to River Jordan - might be regarded as inadequate by the Palestinians, who will demand as close a return to the lines of 1967 as possible, including some foothold in Jerusalem.

Even if we are required to make painful compromises, I will be willing to make them for the sake of true peace Ariel Sharon Israeli prime minister

And before they even get to the final status issues, which in the past have proved impassable mountain ranges, they have to negotiate their way along the lowlands marked out by the roadmap drawn up by the US, the UN, Russia and the EU.

These lowlands have their own hazards.

Key test for Israelis

For Israelis, the key test of Palestinian intentions will be what happens to their armed factions. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have announced a three-month ceasefire. Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement says it is observing a six-month truce.

The position of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - technically a part of Fatah - remains unclear, with some dissidents already challenging the apparent agreement of their leaders.

Palestinians want an end to Israeli occupation

The roadmap does not call just for a ceasefire but for action by the Palestinians to "arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning attacks on Israelis anywhere". This has to be followed by the "dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure".

There will also have to be further Israeli withdrawals to the lines held on 28 September 2000 - the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada.

All settlement activity including "natural growth", as the road map puts it, will have to stop.

Palestinian prisoners

And the Palestinians have introduced their own demand - one not specifically mentioned in the roadmap.

They want the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners, especially people like Marwan Barghouti, a West Bank leader who has led the second Intifada but who has also helped press for the ceasefire.

The three months of the ceasefire gives some timeframe for action. And at any stage, of course, the ceasefire could end if Israel decides to attack the armed groups or they decide to break it themselves.

If that happened, everything would go back to the starting line. The Israelis would attack the three factions without hesitation; they in turn would resume their deliberately indiscriminate bombings.

Psychology of the moment

A lot depends on the psychology of this moment and whether the two sides have reached a state of fatigue and stalemate.

If that is so, then there is some hope. Progress could be made along the path the roadmap lays out - Palestinian elections and institution building, Israeli restraint, a peace conference, a Palestinian state with provisional borders and then a move towards those final issues - final borders, settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, acceptance of Israel in the Arab world.

For every Saeb Erekat, however, there are many sceptics who have been proved right before and might be proved right again.