As the bumpy road to peace in the Middle East lurches along, many detractors on both sides are calling it a sell-out, but nowhere are these rejectionist cries louder than from partisans living far away from the conflict.

True, Sharon is not the first image of a peacemaker that comes to mind, and most of the evidence is that he and his right-wing coalition will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to serious negotiations. The question is whether Bush has the will and the determination to do the dragging, especially as elections loom large on the American political horizon.

According to conventional wisdom, he cannot afford to alienate the Jewish constituency and will therefore put the whole peace process on hold until it will have lost momentum, and falls victim to the cycle of violence that has gripped Palestine and Israel these last three years.

Most Muslims are sceptical that the Bomber of Baghdad will go the extra mile to solve an issue that has kept the Middle East simmering for over fifty years. According to them, Bush is so completely in thrall to the cabal of Zionists who surround him that there is no way he will antagonise them and Israel to satisfy Muslim demands for American fairness in the dispute. But we could all be wrong: having removed Saddam Hussein and the perceived Iraqi threat to Israel for the foreseeable future, Bush can demonstrate his pro-Israel credentials. Also, in the last presidential elections, he received less than 15 per cent of the Jewish vote, so he is hardly indebted to American Jews for his controversial victory.

Oddly, the greatest pressure on Bush to stop trying bring Sharon to heel comes from the evangelical Christians in the United States. This is the Republican Party's natural constituency and voted overwhelmingly for Bush who is a born-again Christian himself. This group seriously believes that Christ's Second Coming will only happen when Jews occupy all the 'promised land'.

Thus, any peace talks that result in the return of even parts of Palestine to its rightful owners constitute a step backward for those who believe in this doctrine. Never mind that according to this belief, Jews will be obliterated when Armageddon follows the Second Coming, but for the biblical prophecy to come true, Palestinians must be expelled from the 'promised land'.

There is thus a partnership between the Christian right and Jewish supporters of Israel in the United States, and together they form a formidable political lobby. However, the former have nobody else to vote for since they view liberal Democrats as anathema, and in the last presidential election the vast majority of Jewish voters supported Al Gore. So in purely electoral terms, Bush can be even-handed in the Middle East without any serious erosion of his re-election prospects.

Currently it is Sharon who is in a political squeeze as his right-wing coalition is adamant that he should make no concessions, especially on the issue of demolishing new settlements. Indeed, settlers have threatened armed resistance if their homes are razed as was done in the Sinai when land was returned to Egypt after the peace treaty was signed. But the Israeli PM can count on Labour for support if he is abandoned by extreme right groups.

It may well be that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister thrust on Arafat by the Americans and Israelis, will be the weak link in this trio. He has no constituency of his own and the refusal of Hamas and other resistance groups to accept the road map may prove to be where the plan unravels. But they must be discouraged by their Arab and Iranian backers from sabotaging the peace process. The fact is that the Americans are the only ones who can pressure the Israelis to return land for peace. If anybody is going to torpedo the road map, it must not be the Palestinians if they want a state of their own.

But if they are hurting, so are the Israelis. After three years of guerrilla warfare and suicide attacks, their economy is in serious trouble. Tourism, once a major earner, is virtually moribund, and cheap Palestinian labour is unavailable. In short, they want peaces as badly as the Palestinians do. Despite the heavy infusions of American aid, Israel needs peace and stability to prosper and cannot sustain the present level of hostilities indefinitely.

It is clear that apart from zealots on both sides, all sane Palestinians and Israelis want peace. Ideally, they would want it on their own terms, but in the real world, successful negotiations imply painful concessions. The Israelis would like to hang on their settlements and see a truncated, patchwork Palestinian state that does not control its own water or airspace. Above all, they would want to retain total control of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want to recover all the territory seized by Israel in 1967, including the parts of the Holy City lost by the Jordanian army. And above all, they want the right of return to Israel for descendants of refugees forced out of their homes in 1948.

In a perfect world, we would all get what we want, but in the real one, you have to give up some things to get others you want more. The outcome of negotiations frequently reflects the power equation on the ground, but if this were an inflexible rule, the Palestinians would get very little. However, there are several factors that strengthen their bargaining position. Firstly, they have legitimacy on their side in the shape of several UN resolutions.

Secondly, the Israelis know that if they want to be accepted in the Middle East, there has to be a fair resolution of the problem. Next, Israel has become accustomed to fairly high standards of living, and an indefinite conflict will emasculate their economy. Finally, although Israelis have suffered a third of the casualties the Palestinians have in this intifada, even this is too high for a small nation.

One of the things the Israelis will not compromise on is the issue of the right of return as this would spell demographic suicide for them because they are reproducing at a much lower rate than the Palestinians. On Jerusalem, the Americans will have to lean very hard on Sharon. Ideally, the city should be an international one where both Israel and Palestine have their capitals, but this will involve much bickering and horse-trading before a compromise is worked out.

Above all, the Israel and the United States must see that only an honourable peace - 'a peace of the brave' - will endure the corrosive passions of centuries-old rivalries and hatred. Any attempt at fobbing off the Palestinians with a series of 'Bantustans' will mean yet another cycle of violence.