AFTER BEING forced to return Calais to the French in 1558, Mary Tudor claimed that the name of the Channel port would be found lying in her heart. One wonders if the same thing could said about President George W Bush with regard to Palestine. Before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Middle East for this weekend's talks with the main players, she made it perfectly clear that time was running out and that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution would not remain open indefinitely.

What she said was hardly earth-shattering. For many years now the Palestinian situation has been as intractable an equation as the Eastern Question was to the Victorians, but Rice's arrival in Jerusalem yesterday is a punctuation mark of sorts.

And time really is running out. The Palestinian Authority is tottering on the verge of collapse, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is an affront to civilised society and violence continues unabated with both sides displaying a propensity to indulge in it while avoiding any opportunity to sit down and talk. And all this is happening during Bush's final months in office, making a mockery of any suggestion that peace in the region would be his lasting legacy.

It has now come to the point when everyone involved in the process wonders if it's worth making one last push or if they should simply mark time and wait for the next incumbent to get his or her legs under the desk in the White House. We'll get a better idea when Bush pitches up later this month for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the foundation of Israel, but if the US president is going to get anywhere much will depend on the outcome of Rice's shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Last night she dined with Israel's prime minister Ehud Ohlmert and today she will have talks in Ramallah with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. However, the only tripartite talks will be with former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who have been responsible for most of the recent negotiations. But at this stage substance is much more important than personalities, and central to their discussions will be further negotiations about determining the borders of the proposed independent Palestinian state.

So far Rice has made all the right noises about the Israelis drawing a line under further expansion of settlements in the West Bank, but that's for public consumption. US State Department officials privately admit that it will be extremely difficult for Israel, a key American ally, to order its people to give up disputed land, either because of security implications or because it would involve a serious loss of face for Israel. Withdrawing from Gaza in 2005 was easy enough, but doing the same thing in the West Bank is another matter altogether and everything in the two-state solution hangs on the ability to get a demarcation which suits both sides.

Unless agreement is reached before Bush touches down in Israel, the idea of delivering a peace deal before he leaves office will be stillborn. A growing number of Israelis now believe that a separate Palestinian state is the only long-term solution, but getting to that stage will depend on enormous good will and no little crossing of fingers. It will also need the support of the rest of the Arab world and so far that hasn't been particularly visible. Financial pledges have been made but far too much of the promised $7.7 billion (about £4 billion) has failed to materialise.

As a result, aid fails to get through to those who need it most, the Palestinian economy exists in name only and the entire infrastructure remains unsuited for any kind of development. Add on the frustrations caused by the presence of the Israeli Defence Forces with their network of roadblocks and restrictions on movement and it's easy to see why life in the Palestinian territories has more or less ground to a halt. Three years ago the World Bank counted 376 checkpoints, last week the number was 580. No-one doubts that the roadblocks are needed, but their presence makes it very difficult for Palestinians to gain access to agricultural areas in the Jordan valley or to get their goods to market.

Above all, there is a need to find some sort of accommodation with Hamas - but that will be worse than dining with the devil; no spoon will ever be long enough. One incident last week demonstrated the sheer intractability of the whole situation. While Israel was commemorating Holocaust Day and remembering the millions who died in the Nazi concentration camps, Hamas responded by threatening a fresh outbreak of rocket attacks. Rice will need all her diplomatic skills if she's going to allow her boss to dream an increasingly impossible dream.