There could hardly be a worse moment for Condoleezza Rice to arrive in the Middle East to drive forward peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Not only is there no peace on which to build, but also the Israeli rocket attacks and army incursion into Gaza have left 116 Palestinians dead, forced Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, to break off talks with Israel and brought condemnation of the “disproportionate” Israeli response from even some longstanding friends. Any US plea for restraint will fall on deaf ears. Ehud Olmert, the embattled Israeli Prime Minister, said that his country was in the midst of combat action. After crowing that Israel had failed to curb its fighters, Hamas capped this boast with a fresh salvo of rockets on Ashkelon.

The basis for the US-backed peace plan is falling apart. The two-state solution now looks scarcely viable. A single Palestinian state comprising Gaza and the West Bank was always dubious, given the geographic separation. It now looks stillborn: Israel has no negotiating partner in Gaza and the enmity between Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is such that President Abbas has privately urged Israel not to contemplate such a move.

Isolating Gaza brings peace no closer, however. Israel argues that until Hamas recognises its right to exist, it cannot even begin talks. And while militants in the Strip continue to fire rockets at Israeli towns, Israel insists that it has no option but to increase the pressure, economic and military, to force Hamas to rein in its fighters. Hamas, however, responds neither to pressure nor to the offer of talks. And so Israeli politicians, responding to public frustration, have spoken of ever more serious consequences, even unwisely threatening Gaza with the emotive word shoa, the normal Hebrew word for Holocaust.

Israel has trapped itself with its own rhetoric. Any talk of a “proportionate” response is self-defeating. What is proportionate? The question should be: what is effective? Israel's friends, including Britain, have reaffirmed the country's right to defend itself. But Western public opinion regards the deaths of more than 100 Palestinians for three Israelis, whatever the extenuating circumstances, as disproportionate. And when these Palestinian casualties are caused by the Israeli Defence Forces, the very idea of self-defence is brought into question. Over time that is disastrous for the credibility of Israel's claim to the right of self-defence. Israel's action is both legitimate and counter-productive.

The brutal fact is that all sides have more interest in war than peace. Establishing an autonomous Palestinian state within a year, still the Bush Administration's plan, demands compromises no side is willing to make. Hamas will not back down from its militant, Islamist programme as this would negate its raison d'être. President Abbas will not share power with his nemesis in Gaza. And Mr Olmert is too weak to contemplate the dismantling of settlements that would unite his political opponents against him. What Dr Rice - and all parties - must now face are the bitter alternatives to the two-state solution. That may propel them back to the negotiating table. Otherwise, it is time to consider something other than a single Palestinian state, with Egypt and Jordan re-engaged in Gaza and the West Bank. It looks like going back to the future.