Editorial

The democratically-elected government formed by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh just over a year ago has never quite got off its starting block. This was in the main because among its baggage it carries an explosive packet - a refusal to recognise the state of Israel and, therefore, an attitude that runs in parallel with Iran's to remove it altogether. It is an approach that has gained it no merit with the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, which together form what has come to be known as the Middle East Quartet. As if that were not bad enough, the failure of the Palestinian government to build on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, an initiative undertaken by Ariel Sharon before a massive stroke, from which he has shown no signs of recovery, consigned him to a hospital bed, boded ill. One consequence has been Israel's refusal to have anything to do with the Hamas-led government.

Other more serious repercussions include the suspension of American and EU funding that had been in place, a threat by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call an election and the possibility of civil war as Hamas and Fatah factions fought one another in the streets. This internal violence caused the death of nearly 100 Palestinians.

Mr Abbas has long been insisting that a way out of the impasses would be the formation of a national unity government, a stand that initially met with no approval from Mr Haniyeh. But a unity agreement signed by the two parties in Saudi Arabia last week provided a glimmer of light, no more than that at the moment. The fly in the ointment of that agreement is the fact that there is no explicit undertaking to recognise the Jewish state.

The Israeli government, which has been maintaining contacts with Mr Abbas, has since made it clear that unless this recognition, a renunciation of violence and the acceptance of interim peace agreements by any government formed by the two sides were forthcoming, it would also suspend contacts with the Palestinian President.

The EU has put on a braver face. Last Monday, its External Relations Commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, praised Saudi Arabia for persuading the two sides to form a national unity government "with which", she hoped, "the international community could engage". EU foreign ministers likewise praised the agreement and expressed a readiness to work with a Palestinian government that took on board the recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence and previous agreements entered into by Israel and Palestine - and to expand aid. Palestine badly needs that help. The more worrying aspect is that time is running out in a region beset by crises - Iraq, Lebanon, which gives every impression that it is on the verge of collapse, an Iran that continues to ignore calls to suspend its uranium enrichment programme and, indeed, an Israel that has declared it will not allow a state that has vowed to eliminate it to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Israeli-Palestinian crisis is, in a sense, dwarfed by the inimical surroundings in which it is being played out. And, yet, a solution to it, the creation of a Palestinian state co-existing with an Israel it recognises, will go some way to defuse a situation that has within it the infernal ability to rock the whole world. The interest being shown in the region by President Vladimir Putin, who seems to have rediscovered his Cold War voice, will not help unless he, too, acknowledges that this is no time for dangerous opportunism.