´óÏó´«Ã½

You enter Silwan just by Jerusalem's Old City, right under the majestic walls of the al-Aqsa mosque.

As the hillside drops away sharply in front of you, the houses flow down the contours like a cascade of concrete, brickwork and windows plunging into the valley below.

There are fifty thousand people in Silwan, the great majority of them Muslim and Christian Arabs.

For some years though Jews have been expanding their toehold in the neighbourhood, buying houses, mostly in the upper part, near the Old City.

Now that proximity talks between Israelis and Palestinians have started up again, with both sides insisting they are keen to move forthwith to face to face talks, places like Silwan could prove to be the biggest obstacle to progress.

Source of identity

Jerusalem itself holds totemic power for both peoples, and it is for that reason that some hail the apparent Israeli construction freeze in the city as evidence that the current peacemaking drive may at last be producing some tangible results.

At the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament, Labour member Daniel Ben Simon said that the de facto decision to freeze Israeli construction in Jerusalem is "unprecedented" and that it demonstrates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is, "some kind of magician".

"Jerusalem still, in the eyes of all Israelis, is the jewel of all Israeli identity. Without it we are nothing... I don't know how he did it," Mr Ben Simon told me.

The magic does not extend actually to announcing that halt in Jewish construction projects in the city, since that would antagonise Mr Netanyahu's right wing coalition partners.

Washington pressure

But diplomats and some Palestinian politicians I have spoken accept that the freeze is nevertheless happening.

Adnan Husseini, styled "Governor of Jerusalem" by the Palestinian Authority, says that rather than a breakthrough for peace the change is "a tactic by Mr Netanyahu, under American pressure".

There is no doubt that there has been pressure on the Israeli prime minister from the White House and that President Barack Obama, apparently satisfied, has now eased the pain a little by inviting Mr Netanyahu to visit him in Washington on Tuesday.

But where might it lead, when so much might still go wrong?

In Silwan not only are there the main group of Jewish families, keen to repopulate an area of the city which they celebrate as the ancient capital of King David, but there are also actors that might de-rail any progress.

Demolition plan

A more radical Jewish movement has housed itself up deep in Silwan.

The Municipality is insisting it will carry out at the bottom of the valley in order to create a park.

Palestinians in Silwan argue this has increased tension palpably.

Fakri Abu Diab, owner of one of those houses and a campaigner against the Israeli authorities, showed me his property.

For him, having paid city taxes for years and been refused official permission to extend his house, the planned clearance marks a final insult:

"In 43 years they have done nothing for us", he told me, counting the years since Israel took the West Bank from Jordan, "and now they do this!"

The Israelis say that Islamic militants have come into the neighbourhood and are planning attacks on Jewish residents.

The Palestinians worry that messianic Jewish militants, like those who recently marched in Silwan, touching off clashes, may attempt to provoke bloodier confrontations.

So with the communities living cheek to cheek in such a sensitive area, there are all manner of things that could go wrong.

Some Israelis believe Mr Netanyahu will simply not allow the Municipality to go ahead with its demolition project, but the city authority insists upon its independence in the matter.

All in all then it is likely to be a hot summer in Silwan.

But the wider question is whether recent steps by the Israeli government mark the beginning of a serious peace process or whether it is a tactic?

Mr Obama will make his own judgement about that next week, but if his judgement is positive the Palestinian Authority will soon be under pressure to respond.

Lady Sarah Churchill, writing 300 years ago, struggled to make sense of the British party system.

The Tories and Whigs - as Liberals were then called - were just beginning to flex their muscles in parliament and both Lady Sarah and her husband (Britain's conquering generalissimo the Duke of Marlborough) were frequent targets of their attacks.

Reflecting upon the supposed rivalries and bitterness between Tories and Whigs, she noted: "I can't see much difference between them, both sides designing nothing but their own advantage."

The Whigs, she noted, argued that they were all for Liberty and the Tories were staunch monarchists. But in the end, felt Lady Sarah, "they imagined they should have all the power and places of advantage divided among themselves".

Her words keep coming back to mind as we watch the first steps of our new coalition government. I am not so cynical as Lady Sarah Churchill, a ruthless schemer memorably described by her descendant Winston as, "a spitfire and a termagant".

Today, there seems to be a genuine groundswell of support for party leaders willing to set aside their differences in the national good.

However, I do think that we have reached a point where our post-ideological politics have brought us full circle, to a point recognisable to those - like Lady Sarah - who witnessed the birth of the party system in the early 18th Century.

People talk about the entire political argument in Western democracies these days being about how ½% of GNP is spent.

Parties fighting for the centre ground "triangulate" policy, splitting the differences between them until something like yesterday's coalition program can emerge.

There are still some pretty ideological voters out there, but they drift off to the likes of UKIP or the Greens, and don't stand much chance of forming a government. And those who remain to fight over the centre ground end up, like 18th Century gentlemen, looking and sounding much like one another.

Robbed of real ideological difference, the parliamentarian often resorts to rhetorical excess. And the Marlboroughs knew all about that, being the target for such merciless satirists as Defoe and Swift who heaped abuse upon them.

The analogy to the reign of Queen Anne or the Georgian monarchs continues with the current obsession with patronage - who is making money out of political office - and indeed nepotism or dynasty.

Perhaps in Tony Blair, we see a modern equivalent for the Duke of Marlborough - not a conquering general of course, but a man, accused as Lady Sarah's husband was, of making a personal fortune through war.

Of course, all of these historical parallels have their limitations. Today's MP is scrutinised to a degree that his early 18th Century counterpart would have found completely unacceptable.

But to the degree that the new government embodies people for whom wielding power (in the national interest of course...) is more important than ideology, I would imagine Sarah Churchill would be entirely unsurprised.

is an important moment, as the world becomes more multi-polar and less predictable.

Some people are reporting American chagrin that the Brazilians, in helping to strike the deal which will see some low-enriched uranium sent to Turkey in return for higher-grade nuclear fuel for a research reactor, may have stymied US-led attempts to achieve a similar but more comprehensive arrangement.

It's not so long since the US was regarded as "the hyper-power" and many still see it as the world's only superpower.

But as other nations - particularly Brazil, India, and China - grow stronger and more internationally assertive the result is likely to be more confusion in international politics.

It will also lead many smaller countries to indulge in power politics, playing big states off against one another.

Many around the world may have longed for an end to the era of American international dominance, but will they end up thinking they should have been more careful about what they wished for?

Are the Chinese any gentler in their extraction of minerals from Africa than US companies are? Does India offer better rights to workers as it hoovers up hi-tech jobs?
Or do Russian sales of weapons to Iran or Syria do any more to increase regional stability than US ones to Israel?

It might be argued, to extend market economics to the international sphere, that as the world becomes more multi-polar, power will be dispensed more efficiently.

But the counter-argument is that it will also become a less predictable place - witness the Brazil/Turkey deal with Iran - in which certain actors will behave with far less transparency or accountability than we are used to from the US.

A more multi-polar world could also be a less orderly one - particularly if the US, weighed down by its long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, is more reluctant to intervene again.

In the mid-1990s Washington was cursed by many for non-intervention in Rwanda or the Balkans. After 9/11 it was denounced for intervening too freely.

Now, beset by economic woes and its long overseas wars, the trend is once again to be wary of foreign entanglements.

released today, notes that were the alliance to disappear, "the prospects for international stability and peace would be far more uncertain than they are".

It also argues Nato aims to, "enhance international security, safeguard liberty, and promote the rule of law".

The alliance great and good that compiled the Mission Statement were wary about talking too explicitly about the dangers of a diminished US role in the world or of the "de-coupling" of European and American members of the Atlantic alliance in the future.

Perhaps then the most valuable role that Nato can play in the future is in managing the decline of the hyper-power, keeping it engaged in world events in a benign and more consensual way than it was under the Bush administration.

If the Brazil/Turkey deal with Iran shows us the greater potential for surprises in the future, then perhaps Nato can act as a comfort blanket in a new age of uncertainty.

The sad news of three British fatalities over the weekend in Afghanistan shows that while casualties may have reduced in the past month, Helmand is still a very dangerous place for Nato troops.

Having written last week about speculation that British operations may have been scaled back because of the UK general election, I received a number of messages from those in the know.

They denied any such idea, and seemed nettled by the idea that they as professional military or civil servants would have gone along with such naked political expediency.

Accepting their denial that there has been any deliberate British "go slow", and the latest evidence that soldiers are still falling there, the recent reduction of casualties is still worth noting.

As I wrote last week luck, good or bad, plays its part. One of the Royal Engineers who perished at the weekend, for example, died in a road accident.

The bigger part of this reduction though seems to be explicable in terms of the opium harvest.

A great many of the young men who are normally shooting at or bombing Nato are apparently too busy at the moment bringing in their crop.

My contacts point to a seasonal pattern where violence falls in the run up to the harvest and picks up again once it is in.

In much of Helmand this pattern is repeated later in the year, as there are two crops.

This pattern reveals its own truths. Firstly that much of the violence is perpetrated by local farmers rather than international jihadists or Pakistani madrassa students.

One Nato official indeed, has told me that they calculate three quarters of attacks on their forces are carried out by people acting within a few miles of their home.

How far this reveals that the rural Pashtun insurgency in Afghanistan is essentially a revolt against government by northerners (backed by their foreign paymasters) rather than a part of the wider struggle between the West and militant Islam is a matter for interpretation and argument.

The lull in fighting also begs questions about the Nato and Afghan government security effort too.

If violence dips during the harvest, to what extent can these security forces be said to hold the initiative?

Can recent security operations be said to have succeeded if rural Afghanistan still imposes its rhythm upon the troops rather than Nato or President Hamid Karzai being able to demonstrate a steadily falling graph of violence?