As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepares to travel to the Middle East, Europe is ratcheting up pressure on Washington to help relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were both in Washington at the end of last week, reminding the US administration -- which is focused on blazing a new path in Iraq -- of the Middle East's importance.
'We ought to try, time and again, to achieve some results in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' Merkel, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said Thursday after meeting with President George W. Bush at the White House.
The issue was also a central theme of Solana's talks with Rice.
The chief EU diplomat told Rice 'very brutally' that 'of all the problems that we have on Middle East, we have to concentrate on the peace process,' a senior European official said on condition of anonymity.
'The sooner that we solve the crisis of the peace process, the better. Better for the Palestinians, for the Israelis and for the US, because it will show that they have the determination of solving the problem and they will be looked upon better by the Arabs and in Europe,' the official added.
Rice announced last month that she would travel to the Middle East in early 2007, and Bush confirmed on Thursday that she would be headed there 'shortly.'
The date of the trip has not yet been made public, but Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas indicated January 13-14 as the likely timeframe.
Since his 2003 call for the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, Bush has devoted little time to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, focusing most of his energy on the war in Iraq. And the idea of a Palestinian state, the European official said, 'was nothing revolutionary.'
To deepen their influence on events in the Middle East, Europeans want to revive the so-called Quartet -- the group which brings together the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, and which drafted the 'roadmap' for peace in the Middle East.
Bush praised Merkel during her visit for the 'good idea' of calling a meeting of the Quartet. The meeting is expected to take place January 25 in Paris, on the sidelines of the international conference on aid to Lebanon, which Rice plans to attend.
Washington initially had a cold reception to the idea of organizing such a meeting, however.
Yet for all their efforts to engage Washington, the Europeans are concerned that Bush, whose second and final term ends in January 2009, does not have much time left to help foster dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
'This administration has two years,' the senior European official said. 'My sense is, whatever is not done in the first six months of the year, it will be very difficult to have the possibility of harvesting in two years.'
The Quartet decided a year ago to cut off aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, after it refused to respond to three key demands: to recognize Israel's existence, to renounce violence and to honor past accords.
But the harsh reality of the decision on the ground led Europeans to come up with a way to provide aid to the Palestinian people while circumventing Hamas.