BRITAIN has proposed a controversial plan to deploy a US-led peacekeeping mission to the Middle East to halt more than two years of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Speaking at the annual Anglo-Israel Association dinner, the main gathering of Israel’s supporters in Britain, Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Tel Aviv, said on Tuesday night that part of the solution to the conflict lay in the deployment of a “benign force” led by American troops.

Although he did not say what role British forces would undertake, Foreign Office sources said that Britain would be ready to assist in any way.

The envoy said that the foreign force would act much as US troops did in post-war Japan, or more recently in East Timor, where Australian-led peacekeepers were deployed after Indonesian forces had withdrawn. He also drew comparisons with Kosovo, where a British-led Nato force took control after the withdrawal of Serb troops.

The proposal provoked dismay among Israeli and US military officials, but appeared to back the long-standing Palestinian demand for an international peacekeeping force to act as a buffer against Israel.

“He is making a false comparison,” a senior Israeli military officer said. “In Japan, East Timor and Kosovo, foreign forces entered after their opponents were defeated and forced to withdraw.”

Mr Cowper-Coles’s plan has supporters among some influential American figures in Middle East diplomacy and among members of the Israeli Left.

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