THIRTY years of intense US-led diplomacy, aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, could draw to an end in the wake of yesterday’s Israeli elections and the confirmation of a new militant Palestinian government.

Ever since Washington brokered the Camp David agreement in 1979, successive US administrations have despatched envoys to the region and produced dozens of plans in the search for an elusive peace.

Now, however, the “peace process”, as this tortuous brand of diplomacy is known, could be coming to a end. Yesterday’s election victory in Israel for the centrist Kadima party has given Ehud Olmert, the man forming the new government, a strong mandate to carry out territorial moves that would see Israel setting out unilaterally what it regards as its future borders.

Last year Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister who is in a coma after suffering a stroke, executed a similar move in the Gaza Strip.

That operation, which involved the removal of 8,000 Jewish settlers, was widely welcomed internationally since it conformed to demands that Israel vacate all land it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Mr Olmert’s proposed pullout from the West Bank is far more controversial. While he also plans to remove thousands of Jewish settlers, he would incorporate Arab East Jerusalem and three large chunks of occupied territory, where the bulk of Jewish settlements are located.

With the erection of a “security fence” to protect this new frontier, Israel will de facto have redrawn an international border. The move is likely to produce an outcry internationally, but that in itself will not deter a new Government which has the clear backing of the Israeli people.

On the Palestinian side the situation is even more complex. Yesterday the new Palestinian parliament confirmed the appointment of ministers belonging to Hamas, the militant Islamic group which has waged a bloody campaign against Israel.

For the time being there is no question of direct official contact between the new Palestinian government and the West at any senior level until the movement fundamentally changes its policies. America and the EU insist that Hamas recognise Israel’s right to exist and abandons the use of violence.

Senior British officials insisted yesterday that there is still the possibility of bringing both parties back into an international framework. The Quartet group, made up of America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, will continue to meet and discuss Middle East issues and give its support to the “road map”, a plan which envisages the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.

But Western diplomats concede that in the present climate the chance of any real negotiations is virtually nil.

As ever in the Middle East, the US remains the only outside player that can exert real pressure on the parties.

But the Bush Administration has time and again shown itself reluctant to get involved and certainly does not intend to challenge Israel. Washington is already struggling with the war in Iraq and other regional crises, without taking on one more intractable problem.

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