Blair's Middle East 'nightmare'

By Jeremy Bowen
Middle East editor, BBC News

Mr Blair admitted he "may not succeed" in the Middle East

In his emotional final speech as leader to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, Tony Blair promised that he would use the time he has left as British Prime Minister to pursue peace in the Middle East.

Can he make a difference? After all, he has only months, and the Middle East is looking as bad as it has in years.

This is what he said: "From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland, to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism."

The great irony about trying to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians is that many people in the Middle East and in the rest of the world already think they know what the final deal will look like.

They believe that the only way ahead is to create an independent and sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Creating a Palestinian state might be risky, for Israel especially, but Mr Blair, like many other prominent leaders around the world, believes that it is the best option.

The irony is that while they might know where they want to go, they do not know how to get there - or, worse, they can see the road ahead, and do not want to pay the toll that will be necessary to go down it.

Roadmap

Back in the 1990s, when the "peace process" existed, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians ever really demonstrated that they were prepared to pay the price of peace.

For both sides, that means giving up things that are very dear to them.

Tension between Fatah and Hamas remains high

Among other things, Palestinians would have to accept that refugees who left their homes in what became Israel will not get them back.

Israelis would have to accept that they have to give up land that they took in war, and that they believe is theirs.

We can only speculate about what Mr Blair might want to do to break the impasse.

When the BBC approached his press office at Downing Street to talk about his Middle East policy, the answer was that "it's too early to discuss anything yet".

When Mr Blair was recently in Jerusalem, and in Ramallah on the occupied West Bank, he called for a revival of the so-called "roadmap".

This was a stage-by-stage plan formulated in 2003 that was supposed to have produced a Palestinian state by 2005.

The problem was that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis fulfilled even the requirements of stage one.

Olmert-Abbas summit

Mr Blair will not have any illusion that he can produce a Palestinian state in the limited time that is left to him as prime minister, so his hope might be that he could somehow get Israel and the Palestinians talking again.

Mr Olmert has said he is ready to talk to Mr Abbas

During his visit to Israel and the occupied territories in September, Mr Blair was pleased to hear Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announce that he was prepared to meet the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr Olmert's spokeswoman has said that he would meet the president without preconditions, but she has since been contradicted by a very senior Israeli minister.

The minister told the BBC that until Palestinians release Corp Gilad Shalit, who was taken prisoner on 25 June, there is nothing to discuss.

There might not be much to discuss if he is released either.

Israel and the big world powers will not deal with the Hamas government that Palestinians elected last January, and have also imposed crushing financial sanctions.

They say that will not change until Hamas recognises Israel, gives up violence and accepts previous agreements.

Since Mr Abbas is not from Hamas, talking to him is allowed.

But he looks more and more like a marginal figure. And the tension between his faction, Fatah, and Hamas, is so severe that it has led to gun battles on the streets.

West Bank plan

There are other factors that Mr Blair - and other would-be peacemakers - cannot influence.

Mr Olmert is very weak. The controversy over his handling of the Lebanon war could still end his time as prime minister prematurely.

Mr Olmert's other problem is that he has been forced to shelve indefinitely the big idea that helped get him elected back in March.

It was a plan to pull Israeli settlers out of some parts of the West Bank, while tightening Israel's grip on those parts of the occupied territories that Israel wants to keep.

But the idea of pulling out of anywhere is anathema to Israelis on the left and the right after a summer of being hit by rockets from Lebanon and Gaza.

Mr Olmert has not found a new big idea, and without a secure political base, it will be impossible for him to fight the political battle inside Israel that would be necessary if he really wanted to start moving towards a political settlement with the Palestinians.

Bush factor

It is going to be very difficult for Mr Blair to start a political process between the Palestinians and Israel.

Huge obstacles lie in his way - not least the Bush administration's lack of leverage in the Arab world, and its reluctance to put any pressure on Israel.

There is also what seems to be the determination of Hamas not to buckle in the face of outside pressure by accepting Israel and the big powers' conditions for contact.

The best hope, perhaps, is that all sides acknowledge the seriousness of the current crisis. It is very, very dangerous.

At present, no plan or mechanism has emerged to deal with it.

But there is a recognition that a plan is necessary, and someone, perhaps even Mr Blair, ought to come up with one.