The problem with the kaleidoscopic images thrown up by the Middle East is that it is difficult to focus with any certainty on the one image that matters - an inexorable peace process that will place all the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle together long enough for them to become a living reality on the ground.

The experience of the past three decades is that the shifting sands on which attempts to build peace are made, retain, sadly, the properties... of shifting sands.

There are those who may be tempted to bring sides together, and they are to be admired, but unless they build on firm ground their efforts are doomed. The latest to understand this obvious fact is a former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter.

When he made his decision to visit the Middle East and meet with Hamas leaders, the White House disassociated itself from what Mr Carter saw as his foray into peace. More to the point, at the end of it, his attempt failed even if there were those who put a gloss over the failure.

Mr Carter was President when 400 American hostages were held by Iran and failed to do anything about it. His successor, Ronald Reagan, had to sort out the matter and bring them back.

During his recent, controversial tour of the Middle East, Mr Carter held a series of meetings with Hamas leaders, including a militant leader in the West Bank town of Ramallah, just over a week ago and, last weekend, with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. Curiously and against much evidence to the contrary, Mr Carter gained the impression that Hamas was prepared to accept the Jewish state's right to "live as a neighbour next door in peace".

Yet, Mahmoud al-Zahar, whom he met in Cairo two days later, declared at the time or soon after that: "Our fight to address the material crime of 1948 is scarcely begun" and was reported to remark that in that fight no act of terrorism was out of bounds.

Nor was Mr Carter's optimism borne out by a report in which Mr Mashaal declared in Damascus that his militant group will not recognise Israel. What Hamas would do, he said, would be to accept an Israeli state on Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. This, Mr Carter must have concluded, amounted to a tacit acceptance of Israel's right to exist alongside a Palestinian state but stopped short of an explicit recognition of the Jewish state. Things are never as easy as that.

This all rather tends to demonstrate that, unless this thing called dialogue ends in some approximation of the truth, there is a danger that those involved in it are not listening to one another carefully enough. Mr Carter remains convinced that there is an inestimable value about dialogue with enemies and that there could be no peace without Hamas. His critics react by saying that enough evidence exists to show that there can be no peace with Hamas, either.

During his tour, Mr Carter expressed himself quite certain that Hamas was "perfectly willing" for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "to represent them in all direct negotiations with the Israelis... (and maintained)... that they will accept any agreement brokered with Israelis" provided that a referendum was held on such an outcome.

But, again, this claim sits uneasily with Mr al-Zahar's declaration that Mr Abbas is "a traitor" for negotiating with Israel.

On Thursday, Hamas proposed a conditional six-month truce with Israel in Gaza, an offer dismissed by Israel yesterday as an attempt to allow the Palestinian Islamist group to recover from recent fighting.

President Abbas further strengthened negative reaction to the Carter tour by stating, flatly, last Tuesday that Mr Carter had failed to talk Hamas into accepting a future two-state peace deal with Israel.

The sands continue to shift.