MIDDLE EAST: The new Palestinian prime minister will have many contortions to perform, writes Peter Hirschberg in Tel Aviv
The road map for peace got the type of greeting yesterday that other Middle East plans and their mediators have received ever since warfare between Israel and the Palestinians erupted 31 months ago - a violent one.
The death toll yesterday - the day the blueprint was presented to Israeli and Palestinian leaders - was eight. Three Israelis and the suicide bomber, killed in an attack on a pub in Tel Aviv; two Palestinian civilians and two militants shot dead by Israeli troops.
It wasn't the bloodiest day in the 31-month conflict, not by far, but it did serve as a sharp reminder of the many ceasefire plans which have remained on paper and the well-intentioned peace mediators who have departed the region in despair over the last 2½ years. If yesterday's violence is anything to go by - and it is - then the prospects for the road map are dreary.
For the plan to succeed, it must overcome a peace-sceptical Israeli leader with a soft spot for settlements, a new Palestinian prime minister with minimal grassroots support who must confront fierce militias with a shattered police force, and an American president who has so far been distinctly aloof in his dealings with the Middle East conflict.
In recent weeks, the Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon, has gone further in his public pronouncements on peace than ever before, actually naming for the first time settlements he would be willing to dismantle as part of a deal with the Palestinians.
But Mr Sharon's vision of Palestine is still of truncated, dislocated patches of territory in the West Bank - a far cry from the De Gaulle-like metamorphosis that some commentators predict he is undergoing and which will be essential if a final status agreement is ever to be signed with the Palestinians.
What Mr Sharon appears to be offering - any detail he has been prepared to offer on the "painful compromises" he has said he is ready to make has so far been meagre - does not come close to the offer of former prime minister, Mr Ehud Barak, at Camp David, which was violently rejected by the Palestinians.
Mr Sharon has said he is keen to meet new the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who was sworn in yesterday. Mr Abbas though might not be in a hurry to accept the invitation. The last thing the veteran PLO man needs is an Israeli bearhug - or an American one, for that matter.
He has little grassroots backing - Mr Arafat is far more popular - and the international pressure exerted on the Palestinian president in recent weeks to agree to the cabinet proposed by Mr Abbas will mean the new prime minister will have to sweat to prove he is not an American stooge.
His pledge not to travel abroad to meet foreign leaders until Israel lifts its travel ban on Mr Arafat was clearly a legitimacy-seeking ploy.
The first contorted manoeuvre Mr Abbas will have to perform will be to crack down on militants without a functioning security force in the West Bank - it has been obliterated by the Israeli army - and at the same time ensure he doesn't precipitate a civil war. Within minutes of the road map being presented yesterday, Hamas was announcing it would do everything in its power to wreck the plan and an armed group associated with Mr Abbas's Fatah party was calling the suicide bombing on Tuesday night in Tel Aviv a message to the new prime minister.
Mr Abbas will also have to contend with Mr Arafat, who has always viewed the new post of prime minister as an attempt to sideline him and will have to rebuild relations with Israel without being seen to have abandoned basic Palestinian demands.
Ultimately, the road map will not lead anywhere if it does not enjoy vigorous US backing. To date, Mr Bush has been extremely uneager to engage the sides, fearing a Camp David-like fiasco.
However, the war in Iraq has resulted in increased European and Arab pressure on the US to focus its attention on the seemingly incurable conflict.
There have been some suggestions that the US, keen to enhance its tarnished image in the Arab world, might use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to do so. Mr Bush said yesterday he would do everything in his power not to miss the opportunity presented by the road map.
If he does and there is little movement on the ground in the next few months, then the plan will derail as the president turns his attentions to re-election.