What Mr Bush must say to the prime minister of Israel

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It is hard to overstate the importance of today's meeting between the US President George Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. With last week's announcement of a ministerial conference on the Middle East, diplomacy has finally replaced suicide bombings and massive Israeli tank incursions as the focal point of the conflict. And no single encounter has more riding in it than Mr Sharon's visit to the White House. On Mr Bush's ability to lean heavily on his guest depend America's credibility as a mediator and its standing in the Arab world – not to mention the hope-against-hope that a conference, assuming it is held, can advance the cause of peace.

Mr Bush's task is not easy. In the region, Mr Sharon has brutally exposed the limits of a US President's diktat by repeatedly refusing to complete Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank. At home, last week's unsolicited and strongly worded resolutions of support for Israel, passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and the House of Representatives, have underscored the political risks the President would run if he is deemed to put too much pressure the Jewish state. Suffice it to say that Jewish votes in – where else? – Florida could yet have an important bearing on his re-election in 2004.

In the weeks since Mr Bush accepted he had no choice but to re-engage in the Middle East, there have been two significant new departures. Rightly, Washington has concluded that the "final status" questions, most notably the shape of a viable Palestinian state, must be addressed up front, rather than deferred to the end of an incremental process. Second, the US is now working in diplomatic concert with the UN, Europe and Russia, recognising that America cannot broker a settlement on its own.

However Mr Bush has yet to prove his heart is truly in the enterprise. He has still to dispel the suspicion that the proposed conference is little more than a device to shunt that tiresome little conflict into a diplomatic siding, clearing the main lines for an attack on Iraq. The best way of silencing the doubters would be if Mr Bush this time stands up to Mr Sharon.