Ending illusions

It speaks volumes about the dire state of the Middle East that a foreign head of government visiting Iraq dare not stray beyond the heavily fortified "green zone" in central Baghdad and that the entire Gaza Strip - the centre of the region's latest escalating crisis - is now strictly out of bounds on security grounds. Tony Blair's pledge that British troops will stay in Iraq "until the job is done" had an unreal air as he stood by Nuri al-Maliki yesterday with the disastrous mayhem of daily life - mass kidnappings, bombings and shootings - continuing unabated, with "terrorists fighting democracy" in Mr Blair's words. Flying on to Jerusalem, the prime minister took with him another unshakeable belief - that he can help find a way out of the deadly impasse in which Palestinians and Israelis are so dangerously trapped.

Mr Blair is right to want to help. The world's most intractable conflict is too volatile to be left alone even if few Arabs believe he is qualified to act as an honest broker. Not only is he George Bush's sole significant ally in Iraq but he also delayed attempts to secure a ceasefire as Israel went on the offensive in Lebanon during the summer war against Hizbullah. The phrase "perfidious Albion" may have gone out of fashion, but the sentiment is alive and well. And the phrase "kick-start" beloved of Whitehall briefings about reviving the peace process seems spectacularly inappropriate - in the sense that kicking a corpse can achieve little.

Yet seeking peace matters especially because too many Americans from Mr Bush downwards still resist the idea of making a significant effort, as recommended in the report by James Baker's Iraq Study Group. It is true, as US neocons like to argue, that resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict will now do nothing for Iraq. If a Palestinian state were somehow to be created tomorrow, Iraq's bloody sectarian war and insurgency would continue. But an Arab-Israeli accommodation could help draw the sting of hatred that so poisons relations between the west and the Muslim world. It would allow Syria to come to terms with Israel and help detach it from its alliance with Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would find it harder to pose as the champion of the Palestinians. If Israel was no longer in permanent conflict with its neighbours it might not need its nuclear weapons.

That could all take a very long time. But the conflict needs resolving, and urgently. Some 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since July when a cross-border raid and the capture of an Israeli soldier ignited a confrontation that has continued ever since, helping trigger Hizbullah's fatal attack. The Hamas government, refusing to formally renounce violence, recognise Israel or accept past peace agreements, has faced a crippling and misguided financial boycott since winning the elections last January, though there is now a ceasefire in Gaza.

The danger now is of a Palestinian civil war, a dire prospect for a people who have suffered so much already. The weekend call by President Mahmoud Abbas for new elections came after he failed to form a unity government. Polls suggest a majority of Palestinians back his choice. It is clearly in their interests to have a functioning administration that can deal with their enemy and end the cruel and debilitating siege of Gaza. But Israel's Ehud Olmert - sounding unusually doveish in a recent speech - has to be made to understand that Palestinian militancy and desperation will not disappear until Palestinians have the prospect of a viable and independent state, not disconnected bantustans separated by ever-expanding Jewish settlements. Mr Blair, concerned for his legacy in the Middle East, must tell the Israeli leader that, and encourage him to offer Mr Abbas something real to work with. Fresh from Baghdad, he might also pass on the thought that if there is one lesson to be drawn from his adventure in Iraq, it is that ordinary people always pay the price for the illusions of politicians.