Process needs to start from common ground. But there is none

There was no "family" photo - the Arabs refused to have their picture taken with the Israelis - and there was a sepulchral gloom in the cold conference room in Marseilles, beige and grey like the politics, with a plantation of red lilies in the centre that looked uncannily like a grave.

There was no "family" photo - the Arabs refused to have their picture taken with the Israelis - and there was a sepulchral gloom in the cold conference room in Marseilles, beige and grey like the politics, with a plantation of red lilies in the centre that looked uncannily like a grave.

The Palestinians sat between the foreign ministers of Germany and Austria, the Israelis between Ireland and Italy. "If we can get through this one," a European Commission official muttered grimly, "we can get through anything."

But who knows if the Euromed "peace process" can continue when the principal Palestinian, Nabil Shaath, spent much of his time demanding a multinational protection force for the Palestinians while his Israeli opposite number, Shlomo Ben Ami, heaped the blame for more than 200 Palestinian deaths on the Palestinians.

The European foreign ministers happily acquiesced in this tragedy by repeating their conviction that the United States has a "fundamental role" to play in a Middle East peace - even though America's policy in the region is now a shambles.

The European Union, which pays for at least one-third of all international funding for the Palestinians, humbly repeated at yesterday's second and final day of the Marseilles conference of European and Mediterranean foreign ministers that it could only play an "effective role" in the Oslo "peace process" if it had "the agreement of both parties." And since the Arabs are desperate for a strong European role - and maybe a European multilateral force - that left the Israelis with their usual veto.

Mr Shaath, who rejoices in the title of "minister for international co-operation", complained bitterly that three of his delegation - Mohamed Samhoury, Hisham Mustafa and Ilan Halevy - were prevented by Israeli checkpoints from attending the conference "in total violation of the rules of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership". He angrily demanded a return to United Nations Security Council resolution 242 - Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and the nonacquisition of land by force -an end to all Jewish settlements as well as the finish of "the 'pied noir' attitude of Israel that reminds us of Algeria". He must have known how the Europeans would run from his suggestion of a peace-keeping force.

Mr Ben Ami, equally eloquent but relaxed, even humorous, blamed the Palestinians for their own demise, insisted that an international peace force could only enforce an existing peace and claimed - in a highly exclusive version of modern Middle East history - that resolution 242 involved "negotiation which permits a kind of flexibility." He went on about "Palestinianviolence, Palestinian terrorism" without for a moment suggesting that Israel might have some role in the tragedy taking place in the occupied territories - which Mr Ben Ami, of course, did not refer to as occupied at all.

He did see off the Libyan delegation who rounded on the Israelis at Wednesday's opening session. A Libyan official, we were told, had shouted defiance at Israel, calling it "a racist regime". Was this true? Mr Ben Ami removed his spectacles and thought for several seconds. "It was," he remarked, "a very colourful interruption."

According to another EU official, the Arabs repeatedly asked the Europeans to be more critical of Israel's behaviour - needless to say, the Arabs failed miserably - while Mr Ben Ami's opening remarks "bored them all".

There was, he added, "a sense of moral defeat because the peace process was just not there and we noticed a failure on the part of the Israelis to understand that they are contributing to the state of siege".

Mr Shaath had stated that the Palestinians could no longer "return to the old conditions of the peace process under only the Americans and the Israelis". He wanted UN Security Council resolution 242 in full.

But as a European foreign minister admitted privately a little later, "none of us havediscussed 242". So what, one wondered, was everyone doing in Marseilles?