Middle East poses immediate challenge for incoming President Obama

On the Saturday before Christmas the Hamas regime in Gaza declared an end to the ceasefire with Israel they had held for six months.

In the following week over 300 Qassam mortar shells were fired from positions in Gaza into southern Israel.

Meanwhile the Israeli blockade of Gaza has continued to impose crippling economic and social sanctions on the 1.2 million Palestinian inhabitants. There is no longer work available for some three quarters of the adults subsisting there.

This explosive cocktail was shaken again this past Saturday when the Israeli Defence Force launched airstrikes on 210 targets in Gaza.

World leaders have called on Israel to show restraint and condemned Hamas for its continuing violence.

The Quartet's envoy Tony Blair is as much a lame-duck as his patron President Bush has been this past year. But there has been slim hope of making any headway while Hamas refuse to accept the Quartet principles - recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous peace agreements.

This latest escalation poses an immediate foreign policy challenge to incoming US President Obama. Given the unprecedented scale of the domestic economic crisis facing the new President, he could be forgiven for wanting to focus on problems at home first.

But Barack Obama enters the White House on a worldwide wave of enthusiasm and expectation. This gives him the chance to inject his authority into the Middle East peace process at a critical time. After Israel's election in February, there may be an opportunity for a breakthrough. What a welcome start to the New Year that would be.