Unlike Bush, Blair has always defended the Palestinian cause. He is one of the few Western politicians who have given unequivocal support for the creation of a viable Palestinian state in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations.

As far back as 2002, Blair had said: "by this year's end, we must have revived final status negotiations and they must explicitly have as their aims: an Israeli state free from terror, recognised by the Arab world, and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967."

On the face of it, Blair has got a very limited mandate in his new job. Even though Rice, on her way to Lisbon, hailed Blair as a historic and passionate leader, she went so far as to make a public declaration that Blair was not going to be a peace envoy. He is being sent to the Middle East as the representative of the Quartet -- the US, the EU, Russia and the United Nations -- to help build the institutions of the Palestinian Authority and promote the development of the Palestinian economy.

It is so ambiguous a mandate that it is difficult to understand what it really entails. After all, it was Sharon who, with the active support of the United States, systematically destroyed the institutions of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian economy. Now that Yasser Arafat is not in the scene, are we to understand that Blair is being sent to Palestine to help rebuild the governmental institutions so that they are more docile and subservient to the interests of Israel?

Is Blair going there merely to distribute charity? Can he negotiate with the Israelis to make life easier for the Palestinians by reducing the constant harassment and humiliation suffered at innumerable military checkpoints? Can he put pressure on the Israelis to stop settlement activities in the West Bank? Can he talk to all the Palestinians? We do not know the answers to these questions, except one.

It was made abundantly clear by Rice that the Quartet would not deal with Hamas. Therefore, Blair will have no mandate to speak to any of the Hamas leaders. In the execution of this short-sighted colonial policy, Israel's politicians and strategists have every reason to feel happy about the latest turn of events in Palestine. After all, this is what they had always wanted, to implement the age-old colonial policy of divide and rule.

They have successfully created a situation in which the lives of the Palestinians have been made so miserable that they have started killing each other. In a way, the strategy has worked out better than expected.

When the Americans and the Israelis started supplying arms and ammunition to President Abbas, the idea was to destroy Hamas and keep the West Bank and Gaza united under Abbas. But now that Gaza has come under the exclusive control of Hamas, the Israelis will always have an excuse for not starting serious peace negotiations with Abbas because, as long as there are two Palestinian entities, he will not be able to guarantee the security of Israel.

When Hamas won the internationally supervised elections in January 2006, the Quartet not only boycotted the Hamas government but also cut off all aid to the Palestinians. The Quartet also did nothing to help the Palestinians when Israel froze all tax revenues collected by it on behalf of the Palestinians.

So much for giving lessons on democracy! Thus, Hamas was never given an opportunity to govern. Blair's predecessor in this job, the former president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, protested, but he was ignored by both Israel and the US. He resigned in frustration after less than a year in the job.

A few days ago, former secretary of state, Colin Powell, who is not a dove by any stretch of imagination, said that the Quartet should find a way to talk to Hamas. Powell said in a radio interview in Washington: "I don't think you can just cast them into darkness, and try to find a solution to the problems of the region without taking into account the standing that Hamas has in the Palestinian community. They won an election that we insisted upon having."

Unfortunately, it is Bush who, as the president of the United States, holds the trump card in this game. Does anybody know what his real intentions are? Does he now want to engage in real peacemaking, or continue with his ideological war? How much influence can Blair exert on Bush?

Is Bush prepared to compensate Blair for his loyalty and unconditional support in his (Bush's) misbegotten adventures? Is Bush prepared to go back on the undertaking he gave to Sharon in 2004, that no Israeli-Palestinian agreement would go back to the 1967 borders, or recognise any "right of return" for Palestinians? Does Bush speak and act through Rice alone, or will Blair have a role in the negotiations as well?

If Bush and Rice think that by freeing only 250 prisoners of a total of approximately 11000, releasing a part of the frozen Palestinian tax money to Abbas, keeping most of the elected lawmakers of Hamas imprisoned, not engaging with Hamas, and strangling Gaza into submission, they will bring peace to the region, then they have not learnt anything from their past mistakes.

These are small political gestures, designed to strengthen Abbas's position among the Palestinians, which will not satisfy the real aspirations of the Palestinian nation. (In any case, everybody knows that Israel and the US would not have made even these small gestures had Hamas not taken over Gaza militarily).

This misbegotten strategy will only strengthen "at great human cost the resolve and legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance, and highlight that Fatah is collaborating with Israel." Since occupation is the main problem, is Bush willing to put pressure on Israel to end the occupation?

At this stage, no one knows the answers to these questions. But one cannot lose hope. According to Rice, Bush has finally decided to hold an international peace conference on Palestine in the near future. If this is true, a lot of hard bargaining will take place.

I know that Blair does not have a lot of credibility in the Arab-Muslim world, and that the Americans are jealous of him. But I am persuaded to think that Blair really wants to contribute to world peace by helping to cure this long-festering wound. If he is successful it will benefit everybody, including Bush himself. So why not give Blair a chance?

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam is a columnist for the Daily Star.