“IT’S not nothing,” as Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, is fond of saying.

There will inevitably be gibes that tomorrow’s meeting between Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, is nothing more than a photo opportunity. There is a long list of potential disagreements. They come to the meeting with very different agenda.

All the same, the meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is the highest-level summit in four years between the two sides. It represents the chance of a step forward, even if it is unlikely to be as fast as Britain and the US want.

We can give some credit to President Mubarak of Egypt for organising the meeting, although Egypt’s own interest is clear. He is conscious of how much Egypt’s standing has slipped in the past three or four years, since Mr Sharon came to power and since the US began to cast a sceptical eye over whether its allies could have done more to crack down on Islamic terrorism.

Egypt has had no ambassador in Israel since late 2000, in protest at what it saw as excessive use of Israeli force against the Palestinian uprising.

But the meeting also marks a decision by both sides to try to find a new opportunity after the death of Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and the decisive election of Mr Abbas as his successor.

One measure of the success of the talks will be the level of formality in any language about a ceasefire. Late last week official speculation suggested that the meeting tomorrow might succeed in agreeing a formal ceasefire. But Israel may want to preserve a more informal wording, such as offering “quiet for quiet”, to allow it to respond to terrorist attacks.

A joint declaration to end the violence is one of the first requirements of the “road map”, the plan for parallel concessions by each side.

The two sides appear to be approaching the summit with significantly different expectations. Mr Abbas has made it clear that he hopes that the summit will make it possible to retrieve the road map, and even to move to its formal second stage, political negotiations about a final peace settlement and an independent Palestinian state.

But Israel maintains that the Palestinians must complete the first stage before moving on: dismantling terrorist groups and confiscating their weapons. Israel will push at the summit for a pledge to help to stamp out terrorism and arms smuggling, arguing that it needs this to quieten domestic protests against its planned pullout from Gaza in late summer.

Mr Sharon has made clear that he considers the focus of the meeting to be the ending of violence. He told senior Cabinet ministers on Thursday that it was still premature to talk about restarting the road map.

“We are not talking about peace now, and not about the road map, but rather about phases that come before the implementation of the road map,” ministers quoted him as saying last week. However, Palestinian negotiators will argue that Israel has also failed to comply with the first stage of the road map: freezing settlements and dismantling illegal ones.

They will also push for an Israeli promise to release more Palestinian prisoners from the total of 8,000 in addition to the 900-odd whose release Israel announced last week. Palestinian officials said last week that the number was disappointing.

The unknown new factor is how much pressure the US may now choose to bring to bear to retrieve the road map. Tony Blair, who says he has made the Middle East one of his personal priorities for the remainder of his time in office, has pressed the US to become visibly more involved. His team has talked of a settlement by the end of the Bush Administration in 2008.

The US has clearly decided to demonstrate more engagement, as shown by the visit to the region by Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State.

But although some US officials also talk about pushing for a settlement by the end of their term, it is not yet clear whether this is an administration goal. In particular, it is not clear whether the US will put more pressure on Israel to freeze settlements, or accept Mr Sharon’s position that Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is, for the moment, political risk enough.

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