Jerusalem: Seeing, hearing, understanding, proposing. That is the approach adopted for the first visit to Israel and the occupied territories by Bernard Kouchner since he was appointed foreign minister. This is modest, as the minister knows that France is not the United States and that he is not the first European minister to embark on the traditional political circuit, taking in Tel Aviv (Defence Ministry), Jerusalem (seat of Israeli Government), and Ramallah (seat of Palestinian [National] Authority presidency). It is also ambitious as Bernard Kouchner thinks that France has a specific role to play in relaunching the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He believes that the French approach has a dual legitimacy. In the case of the Israelis, as nobody can accuse President Sarkozy of being the least anti-American or anti-Zionist, and in the case of the Palestinians and the Arab League nations, because France has always campaigned for the creation of a viable Palestinian sta! te and did not get involved in the disastrous US escapade in Iraq.
Seeing. During a brief and rapid official visit, one sees very little. But when you travel to Ramallah you pass through the depressing secured Israeli checkpoint of Beitounin that separates the occupied zone from the autonomous zone on the West Bank, only the confined latter area being under full Palestinian administration. One physically grasps that there has been zero progress since the 1993 Oslo agreements. On the Israeli side, when going for his morning jog along Tel Aviv beach, Kouchner passed by the former Delphinarium nightclub. Still in evidence there are the traces of a terrorist attack that, at the start of the second Intifadah, killed about 40 Israeli adolescents, making one all too aware of Israel's ''security obsession.''

''There Was a Frisson''
Listening. Monday evening [10 September], the minister publicly welcomed having heard from the mouth of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas a ''very positive account'' of the three-hour lunch he had had with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Clearly these two leaders are hitting it off. They have set about preparing together the peace meeting due to be held in the United States in November. Yesterday Kouchner was pleased to hear from Defence Minister Ehud Baraq that Israel would respond appropriately to the rocket attack from Gaza during the night: No air strikes or mechanized incursion to carry out reprisals but, for each rocket that lands on its soil, Israel will cut off electricity supplies to Gaza, controlled by the Hamas Islamist movement, for one hour.
Understanding. ''There is an undeniable frisson, a kind of wind of peace that is beginning to blow here. It is the right time to act, to try to be useful,'' Kouchner told Le Figaro. ''But, of course, it is still fragile, one must move forward step by step.'' For example, the minister rules out for the time being talking with Hamas, a movement that does not recognize Israel's right to exist and that the Palestinian president accuses of perpetrating a permanent coup d'etat in Gaza.
Proposing. This is the most difficult. France dreams of being invited to the peace meeting. Israel is not against this but its government politely pointed out to Kouchner that preparation for it were a matter for the Israelis and Palestinians alone. On the other hand, they all asked France to use its influence to persuade the Arab states that are still reluctant (such as Saudi Arabia) to participate. The minister publicly championed the principle of Syrian participation, on the condition that the Damascus regime stops meddling in Lebanese politics.