Fifty years after the British withdrew from war-ravaged Mandatory Palestine, and with the same bitter dispute over ownership of this narrow land still raging, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, is attempting to rekindle Middle East peace hopes by hosting summit talks next month in London.
First details of the planned summit emerged last night during Mr Blair's visit to Jerusalem, with the idea being to bring together Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, and several other Arab leaders, with Mr Blair representing the European Union, and Ms Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, as the principle mediator.
After a lengthy meeting with Mr Blair last night, Mr Netanyahu emerged to declare his readiness to travel to London within the next month, because he was convinced it was possible "to arrive at a breakthrough".
Mr Blair declined to fill in the details of the new dynamic he is now trying to set in motion. But it seems that today, in his talks in Gaza, he will seek to win a public commitment from Mr Arafat to attend the London summit as well. The British Prime Minister said he was doing "whatever I can" to help get the Israelis and Palestinians talking again after a year of deadlock.
"The prize is too great to let it slip from our grasp," he said last night. While it was "far, far too early to talk of breakthroughs . . . if there is a chance for the parties to come together, that's got to be good".
Earlier yesterday, as Mr Blair toured Amman in Jordan, King Hussein had floated the faint hope that the historic accord on Northern Ireland might prove a good omen. Mr Blair himself noted how badly this region could do with a little of the "spirit" of that breakthrough agreement. And while the lead role and responsibility for Middle East peace mediation has long since passed out of British hands and into American, Mr Blair is evidently hoping that the progress on Ireland might inspire parallel success in the Middle East, and that his own enthusiasm might revitalise the rather disillusioned Americans.
Mr Blair took pains last night to stress that he was not seeking to "cut across" the American mediators. Instead, it seems certain that the London summit has been co-ordinated with the Clinton administration. The US special envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, is himself due here later this week.
In contrast to his Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, who infuriated his hosts last month as much by refusing to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum as by insisting on touring a controversial settlement site, Mr Blair is proving an extremely welcome guest in Israel. He made Yad Vashem a first port of call, left Arab East Jerusalem off his itinerary altogether, and so, unlike Mr Cook, got to sit at Mr Netanyahu's dinner table last night.
Making the Israelis happier still, he declined to endorse calls for the release of jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who has served two-thirds of an 18-year term for passing Israel's nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times.
Balancing the Israeli half of his trip, Mr Blair is to spend much of today in Gaza, meeting Mr Arafat and other officials, attempting to foster a deal on the opening of an airport in Gaza and a West Bank industrial park, and pledging additional European Union finance for a new EU-Palestinian Authority security committee. This may not be enough for all of Mr Arafat's aides, however, one of whom, Mr Akram Haniyah, is demanding that Mr Blair issue an apology for Britain's role in creating a Jewish state in Palestine.
Indeed, Mr Blair's visit comes a mere 10 days before Israel marks the 50th anniversary of its independence - the 50th anniversary of the British departure, and of what the Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe. For Mr Blair yesterday, there was no mistaking the implications of the territorial dispute left unresolved since 1948.
Just north of Amman, Mr Blair saw the impoverished Baqaa camp, home to 100,000 or more Palestinians - many of them families with origins in what is now Israel, refugees from 1948 and 1967. As he travelled to Jerusalem, Jewish settlers in the West Bank were burying Dov Driben, a father of four shot dead in a dispute yesterday morning over land rights close to Hebron, a dispute in which another two settlers and a Palestinian were also hurt.