President Bush’s visit to the Middle East, designed to inject some life into the renewed peace process, has provoked little interest from ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, who have had their hopes raised and dashed by a number of such initiatives in the past 20 years.

Many Palestinians see the US as overtly pro-Israel and doubt that Mr Bush, who has kept away from any direct involvement for the first seven years of presidency, will lean on the Jewish state to dismantle controversial settlements scattered across the West Bank.

In Ramallah, one market vendor expressed the anger of many Palestinians when he pointed at the massive military aid that Washington gives to its regional ally Israel.

"His weapons are being used to kill our kids so he cannot be an honest mediator," said Abu Haitham, who complained that he was losing business because of all the closures in Ramallah that Mr Bush’s high-security visit to the West Bank today entailed.

In Israel, a poll published by the Maariv newspaper showed that 77 per cent of Israelis were dubious that any real progress would come out of the first US presidential visit in almost a decade, coming as it did in Mr Bush’s final and with a messy legacy in the Middle East. Only 21 per cent thought it might help advance negotiations.

Part of the reason for such a downbeat attitude is the bitter disappointment felt when the last serious attempt to create a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel ended in disaster.

After a decade of talks and gradual progress, the Oslo Accords failed at the last minute in 2000, in the final days of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The collapse of the talks was followed by the explosion of the second Palestinian Intifada, in which thousands of people have been killed.

Many commentators have also pointed out that all three leaders involved in the talks are in weak positions domestically, and unlikely to exert much clout.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, could face calls to resign at the end of the month when a report into his handling of the 2006 Lebanon war is released, while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, suffered a huge blow to his credibility when he lost Gaza to Islamic hardliners last summer.

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