Many roadblocks on path to peace

There was, in the end, no fanfare. The businesslike handshake across the table between Ariel Sharon and a smiling Mahmoud Abbas was cordial enough.

But as they read their statements, the facial expressions of the men, the King, the Prime Minister and the two Presidents, one without a state, ranged from impassive to scowling. The applause was polite and little more.

The low-key, almost dreary, nature of the public proceedings was appropriate. We have been here, or somewhere like it, before. Palestinians and Israelis alike remember only too well the surge of optimism after the first Oslo accord in 1993, followed in time by the numbing realisation that this was another false dawn.

It is not to underestimate the great importance of both sides calling a halt to four hopeless and bloody years of a conflict that has cost more than 4500 lives, to recognise that in the sweep of history this is just one, painfully reversible, step down a long and obstacle-strewn path to peace.

If Abbas seemed just a little more comfortable in his skin yesterday than Sharon, it was understandable. For in the short term he has scored considerable success, one that may well increase his standing among Palestinians as a man who can influence events.

True, there was no joint declaration; but Sharon had been by all accounts reluctant to make any formal, public, announcement of a halt to military action.

Whether on not his decision to do so had anything to do with this week's visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - and Israeli officials suggest that it didn't - his statement was less grudging and equivocal than it could have been.

It hardly means that Abbas can be complacent about the months ahead. He has got significantly further and faster than most people expected after his election on January 9.

If Sharon's plan to withdraw the Jewish settlers from Gaza goes ahead on time - and especially if the prospect he held out again yesterday of co-ordinating it with the Palestinians is realised - then Abbas and his strategy cannot fail to reap some of the benefit.

There will be some international money and help for Gaza's ravaged economy.

And though it was conceived long before Yasser Arafat's death as a wholly unilateral step, the first-ever reverse of the relentless settlement growth in occupied Palestinian territories will have happened on Abbas' watch.

The dispatch of General William Ward as a "security co-ordinator" may help him too. Abbas, of all people, does not need ominous muttering from Hamas to remind of him of the fragility of truces.

But Ward's presence gives the US an important stake in this ceasefire as well as acting as a reminder to Israel that the US wants Abbas to succeed and, as Rice demonstrated this week, does not mind reminding Israel of the fact.

But Abbas, facing internal political challenges ahead, needs more than that. First, he needs the "confidence-building measures" Sharon spoke of to have a real impact on the day-to-day lives of Palestinians.

That may mean Israel relenting on its determination not to release some long-serving prisoners "with blood on their hands".

It will certainly mean the dismantling of checkpoints and closures which bring economic and social misery to so many Palestinians.

But equally it will surely mean the maintenance of a political momentum. And here there was little immediate encouragement for Abbas this week.

Based on its inclusion in phase one of the road map, the Palestinians see "dismantling the terrorist infrastructure" and the disarming of the factions as linked to a political process. The more the Palestinian state begins to take shape on the horizon, the easier it will be to fulfil this obligation. The subtext of Sharon's approach is that it is a precondition of the road map process starting.

The contradiction in the American position appears to be this: that Rice and President Bush are genuine in wanting Abbas - and the road map - to succeed.

Whether in a Freudian slip or not, Rice actually seemed to contrast the position of Sharon and Abbas when she said, "we know" that the Palestinians accept the road map and that Sharon "has said" that he does so.

But at the same time, the US also continues to show little sign of actively wanting to undermine the belief of many around Sharon that all the "final status" issues can be put off - perhaps for many years to come. And that could deprive Mr Abbas of the momentum he needs for his peaceful strategy to succeed.

That said, Abbas has one other factor going for him. It cannot have escaped Sharon that if Abbas is allowed to fail, it will puncture a central tenet of the Israeli Government over the past four years. For then it would appear, as the former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon put it this month, that it was not Yasser Arafat who had been the problem after all.

- INDEPENDENT