The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, will visit the Palestinian refugee camps of Gaza this week as part of his current fact-finding trip to the Middle East. There, amidst the rubble of war, the flimsy shacks whose corrugated iron roofs magnify the sun's terrible heat, and the unpaved sandy streets, he will find eloquently expressed the region's seeming intractability.
Gaza, with its population of 1.2 million, has been called, with reason, the world's largest prison camp. Despair and fundamental Islam breeds there like a deadly bacillus on the poverty, the 70 per cent unemployment and the endless fear of Israeli raids. Above all, on the sense of a deep historic wrong done to a whole people.
In that perspective, perhaps what is most remarkable is that there was still talk yesterday by the fundamentalist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad of a possible ceasefire to test the good faith of Israel's commitment to the international "road map". Despite the round-up yesterday by Israeli troops of over 130 Hamas-linked militants in the West Bank towns of Hebron and Nablus, and despite the recent targeted assassination attempts on its leaders, there are still indications that the talks under way in Egypt between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas's internal leadership could produce a formula for a three-month breathing space.
A combination of US presidential engagement, the establishment of a new Palestinian government, new pressure from Egypt and war-weariness of Israel's security policy after 33 months of continuous fighting, has, it appears, combined to convince Hamas that they may be at a crucial point in the process, a moment when it may be necessary to break from the tit-for-tat politics of the last atrocity. In recent days, a number of noted Palestinian figures from the West Bank have visited Damascus for talks with heads of the Hamas and the Jihad to persuade them to accept the truce.
Hamas can afford to take political chances. It has assiduously built a strong base in the most deprived Palestinian communities that owes as much to its widespread welfare activities, its religious fundamentalism and its opposition to corruption in the old Palestinian leadership, as it does to its suicide-bombers. The organisation's willingness to stay its hand may be seen by supporters as a sign of strength not weakness; an opportunity to take its war to annihilate the Jewish state to a different plane.
But any ceasefire will be precarious. Despite important talks with the Palestinian leadership of Mr Mahmoud Abbas about advancing the road map and some action against settlements, Israel has still to show signs of modifying its preference for the overwhelming military response.
On a different note the Israeli cabinet's refusal to meet Mr Cowen because of his talks with Mr Yasser Arafat will be seen by many, including its European friends, as petulant, if not intransigent. This is not the way to win friends and influence them.