The latest appalling spate of Israeli-Palestinian bloodletting in Gaza, southern Israel and Jerusalem has unleashed the customary charges from both sides of innate wickedness on the part of the implacable enemy. Portraying the conflict in this way – primarily as a battle between the forces of good and evil – has certain advantages for it circumvents any need to understand its intricacies and gives rise to an enticingly simple solution.

Thus one side demands the destruction of the ‘terrorist infrastructure’ while the other presages the eradication of the ‘Zionist entity’. These are but two sides of the same rhetorical coin that holds that the best way to deal with your enemy is to eliminate it. Then – hey presto – there will be peace! But what these ambitions really portend is a future of relentless strife for they regard the hardy imperatives of the other people as fundamentally illegitimate and they strive to end the long-standing struggle entirely on their own terms.

Just as eradicating the ‘Zionist entity’ is a euphemism for dismantling the state of Israel as the embodiment of a Jewish national movement, so destroying the ‘terrorist infrastructure’ is a euphemism for excluding a major political current within the Palestinian movement from involvement in determining the end game. Neither aim is achievable, at least not in the short term (nor even in the long term if force or the threat thereof is the principal means of delivery). Not only will a strategy based on either of these aims fail to bring peace nearer but it promises a prolonged period of diplomatic stagnation and further rounds of mutual atrocities.

If such a dismal prospect is to be avoided, outside powers, along with Israel and Fatah, need seriously to reconsider their policy of isolating and destabilizing Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, unless it fulfils the three conditions of renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and honouring previous accords. On the face of it, these are not unreasonable requirements. But even before Hamas could catch its breath in the wake of its unexpected victory in the January 2006 election, the Quartet was fiercely pressing these demands.

No one could seriously have expected Hamas to spontaneously capitulate by promptly abandoning its policies (however distasteful some of them may be) and donning the political clothes of the party it had just trounced at the polls. The more likely aim all along was the overthrow of the Hamas-led government, in defiance of the democratic expression of the occupied Palestinian people desperate to rid themselves of four decades of suffocating Israeli military rule.

The more recent Israeli siege of Gaza may be understood in similar terms. The collective measures imposed on the territory were designed to exert mounting pressure on the civilian population to oppose the firing of rockets into southern Israel. But, beyond this, there was a groundless aspiration that the Gazans would rise up and demand the dismantling of the Hamas government.

This was not a strategy Israel pursued in isolation. It was aided and abetted not just by the US and EU but by others too, including Egypt which tacitly supported the Israeli blockade by keeping its border with Gaza closed until militants blew up part of the dividing wall in January 2008, enabling hundreds of thousands of Gazans temporarily to cross the frontier. Fatah, in turn, was not averse to receiving funding, arms and training from the US and Israel as part of its astringent struggle with Hamas. Indeed, according to a report in the April 2008 edition of Vanity Fair, a projected US-backed Fatah coup in Gaza in June 2007 was only foiled by a pre-emptive Hamas coup.

Apart from a few noises off, the Arab League also stood by, resting on the laurels of its much-trumpeted peace initiative which has failed to make much of an impression on Israeli public opinion, in good part because the Arab states have made no serious effort to persuade ordinary Israelis of the sincerity of their intentions.

Additionally, there was the part played by Hamas itself and other militant groups. When missiles started to rain down on Israeli population centres in the wake of Israel’s evacuation of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005, the Israeli government repeatedly issued dire warnings of retaliation. The groups responsible were fully aware of the consequences for the long-suffering people of Gaza if they continued and yet they persisted. To this extent, they too stand in the dock for consciously fomenting the resultant crisis.

Nonetheless, it is strongly in the interests of the principal parties to encourage the evolution of Hamas from a paramilitary organization to a serious political player by allowing the internal political processes within Palestinian society some breathing space to develop. Whether in or out of government, the movement will remain a significant force among the Palestinian people. However, if forced from power, it may abandon the political path altogether and revert to its more belligerent demands and violent deportment. Or it may give way to ‘jihadist’ forces, including al-Qaida whose advances it has so far rejected. So what may be done to avoid this and advance an authentic peace process?

The immediate priority is for an agreed, internationally supervised mutual ceasefire and an end to the siege of Gaza. Hamas has signalled an interest in such an arrangement, which is probably the only sure way of preventing future missile attacks on Israel. In recognition of this, some 64 per cent of Israelis polled in February 2008 indicated support for negotiating such a step. If a government of national unity can be revived between Fatah and Hamas which the Israeli government is prepared to deal with, all to the good. An agreement with Israel, whether in the short or long term, will be easier to reach and sustain with one Palestinian government rather than two.

Otherwise, what is needed is a tacit agreement between Fatah and Hamas not to interfere in the territory currently ruled by the other, and for Israel and Hamas to observe a state of non-belligerency while pragmatically ensuring the basic needs of the Gaza population are properly catered for. This would free Israel and the PA president Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate the modalities of Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank – the principal focus of Palestinian national aspirations – and the establishment there of an independent Palestinian state. The subsequent inclusion of the Gaza Strip – which no other state claims or wants – would then be essentially an internal Palestinian matter, to be determined in due course.

But such a strategy can only succeed if there is a genuine will – internationally and locally – to resolve the conflict once and for all. Despite the prevailing mood of despondency, this is a propitious moment to bring this quintessentially 20th century conflict to an end, for the official policies of virtually all the main parties are, for the time being, more closely in alignment than ever before, based on two viable states and a comprehensive regional settlement. This configuration may not survive for long.

Here’s what needs to be done while the opportunity lasts. First, efforts to solve the conflict must be fully focused on this objective rather than be proxies for other agendas such as prosecuting the ‘war on terror’, forging an anti-Iran alliance, isolating Hamas or deflecting attention away from the Iraq quagmire. These were among the assorted aims of President Bush’s scurry through the region in January 2008 and it is doubtful that he succeeded in any of them.

The US president, in clairvoyant mode, has spoken of his ‘vision’ of two states, one that he hopes will materialize before the expiry of his term of office in January 2009. But as the leader of the most powerful country in the world he doesn’t need to dream – he could make it happen. The entire settlements project in Israel – unpopular with most Israelis and a major impediment to any peace process – would effectively collapse if the US stopped subsidizing it. The EU and its member states are also well placed to exert economic and diplomatic leverage to achieve specific, constructive objectives.

Second, the Palestinian people need to be confident that the diplomatic process, re-kindled at Annapolis in November 2007, is leading inexorably to the establishment of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state – in the not-distant future – roughly on the pre-1967 borders. Without this certainty, all the grandstanding speeches, all the fabulous donations and all the other efforts to build a state in absentia or barter over its details are pointless. And without the willing cooperation of the Palestinian people, Tony Blair, the Quartet’s emissary, will eventually conclude that he is wasting his time.

This puts the onus firmly on the Israeli government to commit itself unequivocally to terminate in full its occupation of the West Bank, subject to agreed land swaps and in exchange for full peace and normalization of relations with the whole Arab world, as formally pledged by the Arab Peace Initiative. If this is not what the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, means when he avows support for the two-state solution, what does he mean exactly?

While this should promptly be put to the test, there are signs that the realization is dawning that failure to achieve a two-state solution would be very costly for Israel. In the dramatic words of Olmert, in the wake of the Annapolis meeting, it would mean ‘the State of Israel is finished’.

The support of Israeli public opinion for a final deal is no less important than the support of Palestinian public opinion. When, some 30 years ago, President Sadat vowed to establish peace between Egypt and Israel, he demonstrated his earnestness not by trying to convince the rest of the world of his peace credentials and of Israel’s unworthiness, but by flying direct to the Jewish state to convince the Israeli people – over the head of their government – that they were genuinely welcome in the region but that the price of full acceptance was the full return of Egyptian land captured in 1967. Internal popular pressure did the rest. A comparable initiative led by the Saudi King Abdullah – today’s Arab colossus – could have a similarly electrifying effect and help spark a new dynamic.

Another constructive move would be an invitation from the PA president inviting the settlers to stay and help build the new Palestinian state, pointedly distinguishing between unwelcome Israeli occupiers and welcome Jewish residents. Such a worthy gesture could instantly defuse the inevitable protests that it would be heartless to evict settler families from their homes. In practice, relatively few settlers may be expected to take up such an offer, so it would need to be complemented by a broader solution to this thorny problem, including equitable land exchanges and monetary compensation.

Even if all these pieces could be put together, they may quickly come apart if Syria is excluded from the ring. A belated successful conclusion to the Syria-Israel talks of 2000 over the Golan Heights may not only convert Syria into a peace adherent but have the additional benefit of drawing the country away from its expedient alliances with Iran and Hizbullah. This eventuality would all but dry up the supply of weaponry to the militant Lebanese group. This said, even the Iranian state and the constituency represented by Hizbullah will have to be drawn into the circle eventually and have their legitimate interests recognized if there is to be longer-term stability in the wider region.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a self-contained dispute. Other countries have a vested interest in avoiding its deadly global overspill. What is required from them is a clear political horizon and a preparedness to step in decisively to bring this wretched conflict to a final conclusion before it deteriorates to the point of no return. The parties are simply incapable of doing it by themselves. The Annapolis process, like the sterile road map and myriad other stillborn initiatives before it, will only lead to peace in our time if, for once, there is a determined international effort to achieve it before the receding window of opportunity slams shut in our timorous faces.