To understand Tony Blair's attitude to the current crisis in Lebanon, one must understand his deep concern with keeping the EU-US alliance together, write Rory Miller and Efraim Karsh
As key parties to the conflict get ready to meet in Rome today, Tony Blair's refusal to join other EU and UN leaders in calling for a ceasefire has been held up by many as further evidence that the British prime minister is nothing more than the US president's poodle.
But to view Blair in these terms is to fail to grasp just how deeply concerned he has been with the Arab-Israeli conflict during his three terms as prime minister.
He has described this conflict as the "single most pressing political challenge in our world" and has pledged to make a resolution of the conflict his own "personal priority" as well as a "central priority" of British foreign policy.
It is also a failure to grasp the fact that Blair views the Arab-Israeli conflict, first and foremost, as a function of EU-US relations.
Understanding this is vital to understanding Blair's approach to the current round of fighting between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon, not to mention the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians since 2000.
Since the meltdown in Arab- Israeli relations following the collapse of the Oslo peace process in 2000, Blair has attempted to bring to the table what a Downing Street spokesman has termed a "constructive spirit".
He has also avoided the inflammatory language that other EU leaders have employed to condemn Israel over the last six years, and his government has shown more understanding of Israeli concerns than most of its European counterparts.
In April 2002, when most Europeans were wrongly accusing Israel of genocide in Jenin, it was the Blair government that opposed the decision to condemn Israel at the UN Human Rights Commission.
France, Spain, Sweden, Portugal and Belgium backed the resolution.
Again, aware that Hamas was "literally trying to blow [ up] this peace process", it was the Blair government that took the lead inside the EU in demanding a crackdown on the militant group.
Thus while most other EU governments were busy tying themselves up in knots in an attempt to present the terror group as a political party, Britain was urging the introduction of strict limits on charities raising funds for Hamas in Europe.
Given all this, it is not surprising that Israeli officials have clung tightly to what one has described as their "friendly relations and strong connection" with Blair.
But Blair's motives must be placed in their proper context.
He has not taken a more conciliatory view of Israel than his EU partners as a way of falling into line with the US (ie more pro- Israeli) policy on the Middle East conflict.
Indeed, as far back as 1998, during his government's first presidency of the EU, Blair underlined his commitment to co-ordinate Britain's Palestine policy with its EU partners.
For the most part - in deferring to the EU's Middle East envoy and in opposing the Israeli isolation of the late Yasser Arafat, the building of the security barrier and the targeted assassination of Palestinian terrorists, among much else - he has honoured that commitment.
Nor, as one senior French diplomat claimed in a 2002 interview with the Washington Post, can Blair's relatively sympathetic approach to Israel be explained by his obsession with keeping Washington happy.
Rather, having found himself in the middle of an acrimonious breakdown in the transatlantic alliance, his primary goal since September 11th has been to minimise the adverse effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict on US-EU relations.
This explains the British government's vehement opposition to the unilateral French proposal in early 2002 that the EU recognise a Palestinian state as a starting point, not a concluding one, for peace negotiations.
It also explains why Blair, unlike most other EU leaders who condemned President Bush's June 2002 statement calling on Arafat to give up political power, expressed understanding for these remarks and why, when his EU partners greeted Bush's subsequent endorsement of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from Gaza with barely concealed contempt, the British prime minister described it as giving the Palestinians "a chance to create a reformed, just and free government".
There is no doubting Blair's conviction that the Arab-Israeli conflict must not be allowed to further erode EU-US ties and that (in the words of former British foreign minister Jack Straw) "any attempt to push for a solution without American support would be short-sighted and self-defeating".
This has, on occasion, been beneficial to Israeli interests, but it is also true that when Blair has felt that the best way to bring the EU closer to Washington has been to adopt a stance detrimental to Israel, he has not hesitated to do so.
Throughout the Iraq campaign, and especially following Arafat's death in November 2004, Blair expended much of the political capital he earned since September 11th in trying to influence President Bush to make concessions to the Palestinians at Israel's expense, which he felt help restore US-EU ties and reduce resentment over the Iraq war in Europe.
During his visit to Washington in late 2004, Blair urged Bush to support the convening of an international conference on the peace process, something that Israel had opposed for decades, but which has been an official objective of the EU since 1986.
Blair also expressed support for the EU's attempt to relaunch a "fast-track" version of the "road map" for Middle East peace, which is really nothing more than a restatement of France's 2002 proposal for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state.
Blair opposed this option in 2002 because he believed that it would damage US-EU ties. He supported it in 2005 because he believed it would bring the US and EU closer together.
Current events in Lebanon once more have the potential to divide many of his EU partners, including France, Spain and Italy from Washington, and once more Blair is determined to prevent this.
For now, he believes that the best way to do this is to support the US position of opposing the imposition of a ceasefire on Israel.
Have no doubt, though, if in the coming days Blair senses that Israel's military offensive is starting to take its toll on the EU-US relationship that he has worked so hard to consolidate and develop, that will change.
Prof Efraim Karsh is head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, London. Dr Rory Miller is a senior lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King's College, London