Tony Blair is unlikely to get much of a taste of the herculean task ahead of him when he meets the Middle East Quartet today as the international community’s co-ordinator on the region, simply because the main protagonists will not be there.

The former Prime Minister will use his first meeting to discuss his role and future plans with Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. Absent, though, are Israeli or Palestinian leaders.

On paper, the reaction to Mr Blair’s appointment has been positive, with both Palestinian and Israeli officials keen to show that they are willing to make progress on what some here jokingly called the “rest-in-peace” process.

But the problems facing Mr Blair are huge. His credibility in the Arab world has been seriously undermined by the horrific bloodshed of the war in Iraq and by his backing for Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanon last summer. He is often perceived in the Arab capitals as a frontman for American interests.

On the ground, the situation has rarely been more complicated. The Palestinians are now divided between the Fatah-led administration in the West Bank, run by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, and the Gaza Strip, which was overtaken by the hardline Islamist movement Hamas five weeks ago.

The West and Israel back Mr Abbas, although that backing has often been a poisoned chalice in the past, with ordinary Palestinians seeing backing from Israel as tantamount to collaboration with the enemy.

There is a big question mark over whether Mr Blair will even be allowed to talk to Hamas, which Israel and the West view as a terrorist organisation.

Thus his first task may not be reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians but between the Palestinians themselves.

In any case, he has been given a narrow remit to focus only on rebuilding the ruined infrastructure of the Palestinian entities, although how he can do so in Gaza — under siege from Israel and run by international pariahs — remains to be seen.

The Palestinians want Mr Blair’s portfolio widened to include negotiations with Israel, and have said they want the regional conference suggested by President Bush to include final status negotiations.

The Israelis refuse, saying it is too early and the peace process too fragile to think about anything more than limited trust-building measures, such as prisoner releases and a crackdown by Mr Abbas on Palestinian militias.

Both Mr Abbas, whose secular Fatah forces were driven in a week of fighting from Hamas-run Gaza, and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who has been publicly rebuked for his shambolic war against Lebanon, are extremely weak at the moment, and unlikely to be in a position to push any sweeping concessions through their own parliaments.

Mr Blair is also believed to want a broader role than he has so far been allotted, but that could mean stepping on the toes of Dr Rice, who has been given the task by Mr Bush of tackling the interminable crisis. She has had scant success so far, and Mr Bush may be hoping that Mr Blair can inject fresh life into the process.

On the plus side, one western diplomat in Jerusalem said that Mr Blair’s international profile is high enough that he may be able to overstep the narrow boundaries of his remit, noting that much peace-making consists of talking to the various players, something a man with his contacts is well-suited to do.

He has also won kudos for winding down the decades-old Northern Irish conflict, and his proximity to both the US Administration, widely seen as pro-Israeli, and the European Union, often deemed pro-Palestinian, may allow him to chart a middle course in the treacherous waters he is entering.

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