The scenes are only too familiar. Nearly every night on the TV newscasts there are scenes of the Palestinians mourning their dead, the coffins held aloft and weeping women and more often recently angry masked men with guns as the presence of Hamas becomes ever more visible. On other but fewer nights the Israelis likewise mourn their dead, killed by suicide bombers or sniper fire. Revenge follows atrocity; atrocity follows revenge with steady escalation.

In other deep-rooted bloody conflicts, Northern Ireland, Central Africa or more recently Macedonia there is at least, however small, forward movement, the promise of agreement. There is none in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. What is the difference? Why is the Middle-East conflict so intractable. Even the Bush administration, so seemingly anxious to stand aside, finds it necessary from time to time in view of rapid escalation to issue strong appeals, even occasional denunciations as was done recently when it appeared that the Israeli army intended to stay permanently in an area which had been yielded in the peace process to the Palestinians. The US apparently feared that Israeli action would gravely erode the Oslo Accord and its peace process. The US administration is mistaken. That peace process is already dead, beyond revival.

The roots of the conflict run far beyond the geographical region. Israel sees in the USA an ally which must always and everywhere come to its assistance because of powerful US internal factors which shape US foreign policy, namely the strong Jewish lobbies whose support or at least acquiescence is necessary for survival in the US political process - as President Carter found out to his cost. Accordingly, Israel is by far the main beneficiary of US economic and military assistance. Two other examples. As is well known Israel strongly resists the Palestinian call for the posting of international monitors in the conflict areas. So it was surprising that President Bush at the Genoa Summit joined in that conference's call in its communique for monitors. But it was not so surprising when shortly thereafter the US indicated that it would veto any Security Council resolution that called for monitors. And it is all of a piece that the US government was represented last week at a low level at the UN Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa and then withdrew, because the US objected strongly to the Conference proposal to treat and to deal with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It is the case that the small state of Israel holds the super-power's foreign policy hostage to Israel's national objectives.

Because of this super-power stance on one side it is not possible for the European Union or any other power or agency to intervene effectively in the conflict as happened recently in Macedonia.

The Palestinians now know that in the Oslo Peace Process they were tricked into negotiating for parcels of territory which were not in dispute and hence it was not within Israel's competence to withhold or to yield. According to UN Resolution 242 of November l967, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied territories which must be evacuated by Israel. By the same token the Jewish settlements must be seen as constituting permanent structural aggression.

Instead Yasser Arafat found himself driven into accepting as a so-called autonomous unit strips of land penetrated by Jewish settlements, protected by massive Israeli forces and honeycombed by roads on which Palestinians must get permits to travel. Moreover the Palestinian Authority (PA) had been cajoled into acting as a police force for Israel in keeping Palestinian faction leaders on good behaviour or in jail. In addition the PA was required to function as a commercial agency through which Israel authorised the flow of goods into the West Bank and Gaza. It was the growing realisation of the enormity of this situation which led to Arafat's seemingly intractable attitude at Camp David.

In short, from the Palestinian perspective there can be no continuation or resumption of the Oslo Peace Process. Instead the objective of the current Intifada is the implementation of the UN resolution mentioned above - an objective which is unacceptable to the US.

Two other factors obfuscate the issues. US foreign policy in terms of its domestic sources requires focus on an external "Evil Empire" - as was so clearly expressed by Ronald Reagan. This is a role not quite fulfilled by Castro and Cuba. So it is a role in which is being increasingly cast the so-called Islamic terrorists: the Taliban and Algerian groups hostile to Christianity, the alleged rogue states Iran and Iraq, the activists in Yemen, Bin Laden himself, and so on. So deeply rooted is the belief in Islamic conspiracy that in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing the US police almost as reflex action caused two Arab businessmen who had flown from New York to be detained at London airport. Nor are these views about worldwide Islamic insurgency confined to the USA. Russia has to cope with the turbulence in Chechnya.

Sadly the Palestinian struggle for independence and the recovery of its land is viewed as part of a wider Islamic movement with its built-in hostility to the West.

Another source of ambiguity is the tepid diplomacy of the Arab states whose Summit meets regularly to hear the latest pleas of Arafat. The lack of constructive initiatives or even solidarity from that quarter is not due so much to US pressure than to their fears that any clear support for the Palestinians will touch off similar people's movements in their own smouldering societies and threaten their positions as unelected traditional rulers.

What is the likely outcome? It is hard to be optimistic about the future. Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister remains immensely popular. And Sharon has only one strategy, the use of force and more force. He has not changed since he organised the massacre in l982 at the Shatila refugee camp. He still hopes to cow the Palestinians into giving up the struggle.

On the Palestinian side Yasser Arafat is rapidly losing his hold over the Palestinian people as he is steadily pushed aside by the radical movements, especially Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. It is likely that Hamas will quite soon penetrate or take over the Palestinian Authority which will signal the beginning of a new ball game. Hamas will not accept the existence of the State of Israel. And Hamas will not give up the struggle as they are inspired by the example of the Hizbollah which after a ten year struggle drove the Israeli army sent in by Sharon out of the security zone in Lebanon.

So what of the future? The British political correspondent Martin Woollcott writing in The Guardian describes a possible "big bang" solution in which after stiff Israeli reprisal Israel withdraws from most of the occupied territories and builds a wall around itself.

Alas, there is another doomsday scenario. One day it may happen that some Palestinians in desperate anger and throwing prudence overboard will organise the mass destruction of people and property in Israel or elsewhere. Then there will be international action. Eventually there will be a truly independent Palestinian state but the price in blood, as happened in Central Africa, will be too high.