The only way out of this madness

It was a perfect Israeli day. My friend Udi Levy and I meandered in the warm sun through an ancient Nabataean city, Shivta, 30 acres of archaeological paradise in the Negev Desert. Udi, who wrote The Lost Civilisation of Petra about the Nabataeans who flourished around the time of Christ, rhapsodised about Shivta's churches, perhaps the oldest in Christendom, palaces and wine presses. "The fact that Shivta is out of reach," he said, remembering we were in the middle of an Israeli artillery firing range 50 miles south of Beersheva, "is why it was never conquered throughout its history. It's unique." So too was our day, far from the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

While Udi and I explored Shivta, we did not know that Israeli tanks were entering the West Bank town of Jenin and shooting dead two Palestinian children, 10-year-old Mohammed Shahla and 18-year-old Rami As'ousi. Even as I was driving back to Jerusalem from the Levy family's house in Beersheva, the occupation and the Palestinian uprising against it seemed more remote than the ancient Nabataeans.

Then I reached Jerusalem. My route took me through to the centre of town and Jaffa Street, just as ambulances and police vans with sirens blaring were racing past. Traffic came to a halt near Ben Yehuda Street. It was 11.35pm. Teenagers were running away from the scene. One young man had his shirt off, using it to staunch blood from his neck. A young girl was weeping into her mobile telephone. Cars like mine were blocking the road, and we pulled aside to let more ambulances pass. Then came another explosion. A car bomb lit the night and brought the casualty numbers to 10 dead and about 180 injured. The youngest of those killed was 14, Adam Weistein, and the oldest, Michael Moshe Dahan, was only 20. It should have been a normal Saturday night out in the heart of Jerusalem's disco and caf? area. The next morning, another suicide bomb killed 15 people on a bus in Israel's northern port city of Haifa.

Pundits went on Israeli and overseas television channels either to demand that the Palestinian Authority arrest political activists or to urge the Israeli government to decolonise the West Bank and Gaza and stop building settlements once and for all. Western diplomats have been calling the Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafat, to warn him to arrest hundreds of potential bombers if his regime is to survive. The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, curtailed his Washington visit to - as most people here assume - oversee retaliation for the murders in Jerusalem. Israeli revenge for the blood of those killed and wounded in Jerusalem and Haifa is as predictable as was Palestinian revenge for last week's killing by Israel of the Islamic Jihad leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud and of five young children in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians kill Israelis. Israelis kill Palestinians. Who killed first? No one remembers, and it does not matter. Leaders on both sides refuse to impede the momentum of violence, and their internal critics exacerbate the atmosphere of mutual terror. Benyamin Netanyahu, the Likud former prime minister who hopes to replace Ariel Sharon, urges Israel to "apply the same rules you apply in Afghanistan". And, on the Palestinian extreme, Islamic Jihad and Hamas are calling for more attacks against Israeli civilians.

Into this morass the American secretary of state, Colin Powell, has dispatched his emissary, retired US Marine General Anthony Zinni. Zinni is meeting officials on both sides, learning the ropes and reporting back.

No one knows how long his mission will last or what it seeks to accomplish. However, Colin Powell, in his University of Louisville speech 10 days ago, recognised the need for a Palestinian state, the end of Israeli occupation and a Palestinian ceasefire enforced by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Powell has made it clear he will not tell Sharon to restrain himself in the wake of the Jerusalem and Haifa murders. After Sharon attacks, what will the Palestinian bombers do? Their restraint is as unlikely as Sharon's.

"I would tell the Americans to stick to their guns," one western diplomat says. "You should not let terrorists dictate the agenda." Yet that is exactly what America is doing. By permitting Sharon to set a timetable of seven days of Palestinian nonviolence as a precondition for talks, he hands any Palestinian with a few ounces of dynamite the power to prevent talks to end the open warfare. So far, the US accepts his position. On his own side, Sharon is not imposing a ceasefire by Israel. Israeli forces attack Palestinians daily, build new roads through Palestinian lands (like the one that demolished Palestinian orchards near Beit Sahour last week), protect more settlement building and confine Palestinians to their towns and villages.

In an open letter to General Zinni, the Israeli veteran peace campaigner and former member of the anti-British Jewish underground, Uri Avnery, asks: "What the hell is it all about? A few houses somewhere. Is it worthwhile killing so many human beings, so many children, Israeli and Palestinians, just for that? What kind of madness is this?" Avnery suggests: "Maybe you can help us a little, general, sir."

That would mean imposing a truce, and later perhaps an agreement, on both sides, giving Arafat and Sharon the excuse that they had no choice but to yield to American power. Their constituents would understand that. After the killings of the last year, they might welcome a way out.