Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas oversees the swearing in of the new Palestinian government in Gaza City. (Maan Images)

The Palestine national unity government, which begins work on Monday, 19 March, has the huge task of providing its battered, besieged and famished people with security and the basics of a decent life. It must then attempt to persuade Israel to come to the table and negotiate a two-state solution to their ancient conflict.

No one can honestly claim that its prospects are good.

It faces two formidable obstacles: First, its internal cohesion remains fragile, with competition inevitably continuing between Fatah and Hamas. Last month the two parties were on the verge of all-out war. It will need time, skill and real goodwill for reconciliation to take hold.

Secondly, Israel has denounced the new government as "a step backwards for peace prospects" and has launched an intense diplomatic campaign in Washington and Brussels to discredit the Mecca agreement of March 8 -- which brought Hamas and Fatah together -- to undermine the new Palestinian government and to keep the international boycott of Hamas in place.

The first problem is less serious than the second. Having had a taste in recent weeks of an incipient civil war, Fatah and Hamas are determined to stop the suicidal inter-Palestinian bloodshed. Unifying their ranks is their very first priority.

Israel's priority, however, is the very opposite. It wants the Palestinians to fight each other and it will do everything possible, including resorting to its familiar black arts and to provocation by its army of informers, to set them against each other. It wants Fatah to destroy Hamas and drive it from power. It repeats its mantra that there can be "no compromise with terrorists," while seeking to persuade the world that its own violence -- far more lethal than that of the Palestinians -- is that of legitimate self-defence.

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If Israel is eventually forced to negotiate with the Palestinians -- which it will do its utmost to avoid -- it wants the Palestinians to be weak and divided rather than strong and united.

Yet, if Israel were only to open its eyes to the enormous benefits of peace, the Palestinian national unity government could be the partner it truly needs and which it claims it does not have.

The new government has the muscle to bring about the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized on the Gaza-Egyptian border; it can tame Islamic Jihad and other extremist factions; it can stop the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza against Israeli towns in the Negev; it can enforce a real and long-term cease-fire if Israel stops its own punitive incursions and targeted killings; and above all it can ensure that any agreements reached with Israel will stick.

Why then does Israel not welcome the new Palestinian government and seize its outstretched hand? Because it wants to deal with a defeated, not a resurgent, Palestinian movement; because it wants to impose its terms not to negotiate; because it labels any resistance to its 40-year old occupation as terrorism; above all, because it refuses to withdraw to anything like its 1967 borders, but instead wants to extend its colonization of Palestinian land. Moreover, Israel is determined not to allow even a single Palestinian refugee back into Israel.

The deadlock is therefore complete. It can only be broken by sustained intervention by the international community. To Israel's alarm, some European Union members and Russia have welcomed the new Palestinian government and have called on the world to recognise it and end the financial sanctions. In a brave gesture, France has invited the new Palestinian foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amar, to Paris. This seems to be the view of Norway, Spain, Italy and others.

Britain -- still under U.S. and Israeli influence -- is apparently only prepared to deal with Fatah and independent members of the new government, not with Hamas members -- a pusillanimous and self-defeating attitude.

What of the all-important American position? Israel's foreign minister, Tsipi Livni, rushed to Washington to make sure that Secretary of Stare Condoleezza Rice did not stray from the earlier refusal to lift the embargo or deal with Hamas. She even persuaded Rice to call for 'Arab-Israel reconciliation' before any peace process could begin. Livni herself, in a flight into the land of fantasy, called on the Arab states to normalise relations with Israel before the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict!

Secretary Rice is coming to the region in the coming days before the important Arab summit in Riyadh of 28-29 March, which is expected to re-launch the March 2002 Arab peace initiative, which offered Israel peace and normalisation with all 22 members of the Arab league once it agreed to withdraw to the 1967 borders and committed itself to a "just and agreed upon solution of the refugee problem."

This document of historic importance offers Israel the chance of full, peaceful and secure integration into the region. The Palestine government has agreed to abide by Arab Summit resolutions -- including the Arab Peace Initiative of the 2002 Beirut summit -- as well as the two-state solution called for by the Palestinian National Council in 1988.

The world will be watching whether Condoleezza Rice is now ready to endorse the Arab Peace Initiative and will urge Israel to negotiate on its basis. This will be the real test of her authority and independence.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Seale