Sincerity will be needed to bring about Middle East peace, Egyptian parliamentarian Dr Mostafa el-Feki tells Deaglán de Bréadún.
The current "road map" to a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing if not ambitious, aiming as it does to reach a final and comprehensive settlement by 2005.
Clearly, Dr Mostafa el-Feki, who chairs the foreign relations committee of the Egyptian parliament, would like to see this goal being reached but he is best described as hopeful rather than optimistic.
A career diplomat, he was formerly senior assistant to his country's foreign minister before being nominated to parliament by President Mubarak, one of 10 such appointees in the 450-strong assembly.
"If each side - I mean the Palestinians and the Israelis - are genuine and sincere in fulfilling the requirements, a Palestinian state should start in 2005."
I put it to him in Dublin this week that, given all the violence and the depth of hatred, this was a far-fetched proposition.
"It is not easy, of course. This is a very long conflict, five or six decades, and there is some accumulation of religious, political, psychological, social barriers in between," he says. "But if the Americans are willing to put pressure on the Israelis to be more flexible, it will be much easier."
Egypt has welcomed the latest moves to convene a summit involving President Bush, Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas, but feels strongly that any attempt by the Israelis to unpick or rewrite the road map should be resisted.
Israel and Egypt reached a historic peace agreement in 1978 which involved the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control, and Dr el-Feki has a particular insight into Israeli negotiation techniques.
"We are used to the Israelis: always they are hardliners. They start from the maximum to reach the minimum, or the opposite. I remember before signing the treaty of peace between Israel and Egypt, they insisted they would never leave Sinai, but they did."
Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Sharon, was elected to achieve personal security for his country's citizens. But Dr el-Feki says things were never as bad for the ordinary Israeli because of the suicide-bombings, which he deplores.
"The raison d'être of his election was that he will guarantee security for the layman in Israel. Now tell me where is the security? It was never as bad as it is now. It means that his policy is a failure. Nobody can go into the supermarket or to a club or to a bus. They blow up everywhere, because the pressure he is putting on the Palestinians and the disappearance of hope is pushing them to such violence. He kept crushing them by the tanks and assassinating leaders and killing children, destroying houses. Violence always creates violence, it's a vicious circle."
I put it to him that the Israelis claim Mr Arafat is behind the violence or at least failing to make a serious effort to bring it to a halt.
Naturally he doesn't agree: "Don't forget that Arafat was the Oslo man before and the moderate negotiator. But he is not able just to push a button and to say 'Stop the violence' . . . it will stop when the lay person in the Palestinian areas is convinced that peace is coming."
Ordinary Palestinians needed to feel a peace process was under way: "Why was the situation much better in the 1990s? Because the Oslo Pact was there, the Palestinians were full of hope."
But all that changed: "Now, why they are going to the suicide bombers? Because life is like death and they are desperate." He continues: "You can't imagine how the quality of life is for the Palestinians now. They are deprived of the minimum standard of living and human rights."
The Palestinians were constantly asked to appoint a prime minister and, last March, Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, was appointed: "Let us hope that such a step from Arafat's side, by agreeing to have a prime minister and to give him the authority to negotiate, will be a good start for a breakthrough." But there would need to be corresponding Israeli moves.
I asked him if he believed the political will existed on the American side, especially with a presidential election looming next year, and given the strength of the pro-Israel lobby and the Christian right?
"This is one of the negative elements in the whole issue. Now the current administration in Washington will go for the election campaign next year: it has started already. And there is some pressure from Zionist circles. This will affect the influence of the Americans on the Israelis. They will not be able to exert the pressure needed and make the breakthrough we want. And the Israelis are aware of that. They are not ready to give to an administration unless they are sure it will give what they want in return. That is why the last two years in the first term of office for any president are what we call 'bending years'. You can't take decisions. That is why I am not so optimistic, but still any move towards peace will be encouraged by us as Arabs and as Egyptians."
Dr el-Feki, who has been spoken of as a future Egyptian foreign minister, says he hopes at least that the US has recovered its self-confidence after the "9-11" trauma. "After going to war almost alone in Iraq, with the British only and against the general will all over the world, and to be able to achieve what they did, it is a compensation to their psychological feelings."
There could be positive results: "Being free from such a complex will make the Americans more powerful to push the peace process in the Middle East."