The reason the Middle East document recently released is known as the Road Map is because its authors intend it to be an outline of an escape route from the current Israeli/Palestinian impasse, as opposed to a blueprint for a solution.

Its authors are the so-called Quartet - the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States - which know very well that unless the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves start to back away from the violent dance they do together, nothing will change.

The publication of the Road Map was accompanied by much speculation about its chances of success, now that a regime change has been forced in Iraq. There were suggestions that the British Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, had asked President Bush to push the process forward quickly as part of the price of his support for US action in Iraq.

Will it succeed? The answer is only maybe. If it does, it will be as a result of a change of world attitude more than a change in the attitudes of the two parties involved.

There are a lot of good reasons why tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians should start to come to an end now.

Reform of the Palestinian Authority has begun, and the appointment of Abu Mazen as Prime Minister has begun the long-awaited shift of power away from its Chairman, Yasser Arafat.

Three years of terrible violence have profoundly affected both sides, and made it clear that a military solution to the violence is impossible.

Changes in the balance of power in the region ought to help the process to work.

But my guess is that the two sides will not begin to follow the Road Map until some related forces that have been set in motion recently have had a chance to run for a bit.

The Road Map document is about 2,000 words long. That is about 500 words longer than this article, so it is quite short. It is written in the sort of simple, straightforward English that no one can claim to misunderstand:

"A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," it declares, after a little preamble, "will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established, and a clear, unambiguous acceptance by both parties of the goal of a negotiated settlement."

The full text is available on a variety of websites. I got mine from the US Department of State, at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/20062

But simple though the language is, the document contains statements and requirements that have already caused problems for both sides.

It recommends the acceptance, for example, "of the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit - calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbour living in peace and security, in the context of a comprehensive settlement."

That sounds straightforward, but in its original form, Prince Abdullah's initiative included a mention of United Nations Resolution 194, which Arabs interpret as giving the right of return to Palestinian refugees.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made it clear that Israel will not accept blame for the consequences of the two-year war after its creation, when Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish state and about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. Mr. Sharon has called the right of return "a recipe for the destruction of Israel," because it would flood Israel with Arabs. He has suggested that he won't accept the road map if it contains such a requirement.

Similarly, the Road Map calls for the Palestinians to "immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence" and for Palestinians and Israelis "to resume security cooperation based on the Tenet work plan to end violence, terrorism, and incitement through restructured and effective Palestinian security services."

Sounds simple again, but this requirement would mean that the Palestinian Authority's new leader, Mr. Mazen, would have to be able to deliver such a cessation. In his policy speech to the Palestinian Parliament at the end of last month, Mr. Mazen made all the right noises for a man determined to assist the peace process.

"We want a lasting peace with you (the Israelis) achieved through negotiations," he said. "We denounce terrorism by any party and in all its forms both because of our religious and moral traditions and because we are convinced that such methods do not lend support to a just cause like ours, but rather destroy it."

Only hours after he spoke, though, a suicide bomber demonstrated that his assurances meant nothing to the gangs, like Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, which Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has associated with, helped to arm and, almost certainly, controls.

No one wants to deal with Mr. Arafat any more. So far, though, he has outmanoeuvred Mr. Mazen completely. He remains in control of the campaign of terror and seems to be working towards re-establishing himself as the man to see on the Palestinian side of the conflict. He is said to be in the middle of a major consolidation of his terrorist resources, pulling command centres in from the West Bank, where they have been vulnerable to Israeli Defence Force attacks, to Ramallah, only six miles from Jerusalem.

Mr. Mazen has no chance of stopping him. All he can do is try to develop his own resources as much as he can and, in the meantime, cover up for his impotence by blaming delays on the Israelis.

In the meantime, however, those other forces I mentioned are at work.

Attitudes in both Europe and the United States are changing. Europeans are becoming impatient for change. They have been embarrassed at revelations of corruption in the Palestinian Authority, and embarrassed that the aid they have been supplying has been diverted to support terrorist activities. They are embarrassed by evidence that Middle Eastern immigrants are cynically using the freedoms that go with citizenship in democratic European countries to advance the aims of anti-democratic terrorist groups. They may sense they are going to be further embarrassed by the intelligence that is beginning to emerge from Iraq, bearing on European - especially French - support for the web of terrorism that links countries in the Middle East and the conflict in Israel.

The region's instability is also causing two very large practical problems for European countries - the immigration problems that have caused the politics of their populations to shift to the right, and a roadblock in the way of their ability to sell things to Arab nations.

There has also been a really significant change in the United States administration's thinking about how to deal with terrorism. After years of ambivalence and lack of success in finding a formula that would allow rules to be applied even-handedly, the administration has learned a lesson from recent successes in taking on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and Saddam Hussein.

Appeasement is now a dirty word. The Donald Rumsfeld/Richard Perle school of thought fails to see any material difference between Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Fatah and other similar terrorist groups. If their aims and sometimes their methods differ, no matter. A terrorist is simply a terrorist, now.

Under Rumsfeld/Perle leadership, the United States can be expected to deal with all such groups and individuals in the same, unequivocal way. Where Palestine is concerned, they expect the Palestinian Authority to be able to crack down on the groups with which it is associated. If it hesitates the first time, the United States will take steps to make sure it does not hesitate again.

It is this determination that has driven the US confrontation with Syria over its support for Iraq. The Americans have demanded that Syria close the offices of a number of terrorist organisations in Damascus. Syria said it would, characterising them as merely public relations offices. Intelligence sources, however, describe this as a ridiculous assertion. Terrorist organisations openly use Syria as a safe haven.

Syria is now, they say, like a balloon that is rapidly losing air. To regain altitude, it must jettison all its unnecessary baggage. That means handing over the Iraqis it is sheltering; the weapons of mass destruction hidden on its soil and, in Lebanon, which Syria occupies; dismantling Hezbollah's rocket batteries in the south of Lebanon, as well as getting rid of the terrorist organisations that are present both there and in Damascus.

Something similar is happening with Iran. Washington is pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to declare that Tehran has violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, which it has signed. Iran did cooperate with the US to some degree during the war with Iraq, but the US is determined to push until it stops the country's clandestine nuclear programme, and its support for terrorist groups.

It is this kind of pressure, I think, that will eventually cause the Palestinians to renounce terrorism, and mean it. Once they do, they and the Israelis, finally, will have no alternative but to take the Road Map's escape route.