The complexities of the Middle East will confront Dermot Ahern this week, writes Deaglán de Bréadún
With all-out conflict in Iraq, incipient civil war between the Palestinian factions, political turmoil in Israel and a governmental crisis in Lebanon that has spilt on to the streets, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern will come face-to-face this week with the challenges facing the Middle East.
It is a region in which Ireland has a long history of involvement, whether through peacekeeping in Lebanon and elsewhere or, at a diplomatic level, consistent support for attempts to bring the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a close.
Tomorrow the Minister flies to Tel Aviv. After an overnight stay in Jerusalem he will travel to Gaza for meetings with senior Palestinian representatives. However, he will not meet anyone from Hamas, which is the subject of a boycott by European Union member-states because of its belligerent policies towards Israel.
Ahern's Gaza visit will be the first by an Irish foreign minister since the afternoon of September 11th 2001, when his predecessor, Brian Cowen, was on his way to meet the late Yasser Arafat and received a phone call to tell him about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.
Cowen's motorcade stopped on the roadside as the delegation tried to figure out what was happening on the other side of the world.
Initial misleading reports that a Palestinian faction was to blame put a question mark over the impending encounter with Arafat, but as further information emerged it was decided to go ahead with the Gaza meeting.
Mr Ahern will return to Jerusalem from Gaza for a working lunch with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, where the Middle East peace process will be the main topic of discussion.
Given his long experience of the Irish peace process, Mr Ahern may be tempted to offer the expertise of his department to assist attempts to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But although our own peace process has been spectacularly successful by international standards, previous efforts to draw parallels between the two situations have met with a chilly response from the Israeli side.
Yet Ireland's experience could come in useful in talking some of the wilder Palestinian elements down from the window-ledge and pointing out the benefits of a united Palestinian front in any negotiations with Israel.
The EU cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority when it was taken over by Hamas in the elections of January 2006. The prospect that aid would be restored in return for a more moderate and conciliatory stance towards Israel must be alluring to the more politically-minded among the Hamas leadership.
The EU has traditionally taken a back seat to the US, although both are members, along with the Russian Federation and the United Nations, of the mediation group known as the Quartet, which holds its next meeting in Washington on Friday.
The Irish view, which has found an echo at EU level and in recent pronouncements by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, is that negotiation is more effective than military action and that a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prerequisite for stability in the entire region.
Although the US is less enthusiastic than the EU on the need for Palestinian unity, both the Europeans and the Americans are committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, side-by-side with Israel, as a solution to the problem. This will, of course, require agreement on borders, the status of the disputed city of Jerusalem and the "right of return" of the Palestinian refugees, whether to a new Palestinian state or - less likely - to Israel proper.
Ms Livni is likely to have domestic political issues on her mind when she meets Dermot Ahern. The inconclusive military intervention in Lebanon last summer served to set the scene for a growing political crisis inside Israel: the chief of staff of the Israeli defence forces, Dan Halutz, has resigned; prime minister Ehud Olmert faces plummeting popularity and claims of financial irregularity; and the country's president, Moshe Katsav, has been suspended at his own request while he deals with startling allegations of rape and sexual assault - all of which he has denied as "poisonous, horrible lies".
Livni remains popular, however, and sources describe the former operative with Israel's intelligence agency Mossad as "tough, loquacious and ambitious", which could also be used as a description of Dermot Ahern.
Ireland's aid to the Palestinians amounted to €6.4 million last year, an increase of 40 per cent on 2005, although it was channelled through the United Nations and non-governmental organisations rather than through the Palestinian Authority. Overall, EU aid went up 30 per cent last year, although it was also channelled indirectly. In the event of Hamas taking steps to get involved in a peace process based on a two-state solution, Ireland would be to the fore in urging that the ban on direct aid be reconsidered.
During his Gaza visit Mr Ahern will meet Dr Ziad Abu-Amer, an independent Palestinian figure who has been promoting the cause of unity between the Hamas and Fatah factions. Back in Jerusalem, he is scheduled to have talks with Yossi Beilin, leader of the social-democratic Meretz-Yachad party, who, along with current Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, was one of the architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which generated hopes for an end to the conflict that have not yet been realised.
On Thursday Mr Ahern will travel to Cairo, where he will spend the day meeting senior Egyptian officials, including foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, before flying on to Beirut. On Friday morning he is due to have talks with senior figures in the embattled Lebanese government before travelling to Camp Ida in southern Lebanon to visit the Irish contingent of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
There is only a limited amount a small country such as Ireland can do in a complex and multi-faceted situation and Mr Ahern may find at the end of the day that "to travel hopefully is better than to arrive".
Deaglán de Bréadúnis the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of this newspaper