Hamas dimension

While Eytan expects the Quartet will largely go with the American flow regarding Israel and the Palestinians, he sees one area of potential disagreement.

Eytan, who is now with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, believes the roles of Hamas and Egypt concerning the Gaza Strip may cause differences.

The recent crackdown by Egypt on smuggling tunnels under its border with Gaza has been warmly welcomed in Washington but it has pitted Cairo against Hamas, the Palestinian organization that controls the coastal enclave. Hamas is fighting a major battle with Abbas' Fatah movement for control of the PNA.

While German and France back the American antipathy towards Hamas, some others in the EU and Russia believe in engaging Hamas, which Washington deems a terror organization.

Currently, argues Eytan, the U.S. would like to see the Quartet strongly backing Cairo, which has ignored considerable criticism in the Arab world in taking the fight to Hamas.

The Americans also do not want to see any reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas in the short term, said Eytan, adding that the Americans would rather do business with Fatah and Abbas.

All of this is also being looked at within a much broader context both by the U.S. and its partners in the Quartet.

Perhaps above all else is the Iranian nuclear issue. At the end of this week the five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Germany will discus a possible new round of sanctions against Tehran.

At the same time, as Eytan sees it, a close eye is being kept on the new alliance between Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.

After his talks with the Quartet and the French, Mitchell is expected to travel to the Middle East in the coming days to discuss with leaders here the latest U.S. proposals. That will be the culmination of a month in which the diplomatic wheels have begun to turn with considerable speed.

Washington played host to the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan and there have been numerous meetings between Mideast leaders regarding rebooting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

All speak of the need for immediate progress, but Gilboa warns that may come at the price of failure.

"Only move ahead when the time is ripe. If the basic demands of both sides aren't anywhere close to one another there's no point," he said.