The outlook for the Middle East peace process seems bleak, one month on from the formation of Israel's grand coalition, led by its new Likud prime minister, Mr Ariel Sharon. Daily confrontations between Israeli troops and Palestinians, escalating attacks on targets in Gaza, assassinations of Hamas activists and plans now to enlarge Israeli settlements in the occupied territories all conflict with efforts by his Labour partners in government to keep negotiations going. International interlocutors are beginning to despair about the region's future and are fearful it could spill over into a wider regional conflict. One of the few consolations in these difficult circumstances is that this would be so dangerous and threaten so many interests it would command preventative international action to prevent it happening. The politics of oil in the region and the great uncertainties surrounding Iraq and Iran have led seasoned diplomats to speculate in public about a "fireball" effect joining up several of these issues. There are still glimmerings of diplomacy behind the military facade dominating recent news bulletins. Following the recent Arab League summit a paper was prepared by the Jordanian and Egyptian governments. It attempts to restore conditions set out at the Shatt El-Arab summit last October to scale down violence and restore a minimum of confidence and trust before negotiations could get going again. That would be on the basis of the point reached in the talks sponsored by the United States last summer at Camp David and elaborated on at Taba in January. Yesterday's decision to ease access for Palestinian labourers to Israel and its expression of regret for a shooting incident against security negotiators show Mr Sharon must take US pressure to be more accommodating into account.
The Jordanian-Egyptian proposals build on negotiations conducted by the outgoing Israeli prime minister, Mr Ehud Barak - but they were never fully endorsed by him or the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat. The compromises reached were rejected by key groups on both sides. Mr Arafat encouraged the Palestinian uprising as a means of exerting pressure on Israel and has proved incapable of exerting control over its popular dynamic. Liberal-left Israeli opinion became quite disillusioned with their prospective Palestinian partners, as the mass of the population moved decisively to the right, giving Mr Sharon his victory in the February direct prime ministerial elections. Even if Mr Sharon were prepared to accept such a retrieved diplomacy, as was hinted at by yesterday's developments and last week when his son met Mr Arafat secretly alongside the more public encounter in Athens between his Labour foreign minister Mr Shimon Peres and senior Palestinian negotiators, it is not at all clear he would be given the political space to do so by his hardline ministers and supporters. Compromise looks like weakness to them and they are in the ascendant. That is why very firm attention must be paid and action taken by the United States, the European Union and Arab states to contain and manage the crisis in the short to medium term, while efforts continue to find incremental means of making political progress.