Tony Blair arrived in Jerusalem for his first visit as international envoy yesterday, hoping to help end 60 years of peacemaking failure since Britain handed Palestine to Jews and Arabs who remain bitterly at odds.

?Mission Impossible? is what the sceptics have, inevitably, already called the newly retired British prime minister?s mandate as the envoy for the four-power Quartet ? the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia. But Blair has said he has hopes of helping solve a critical global problem. He started a two-day trip to the region in the Jordanian capital Amman yesterday, where he was to meet Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib before heading on to Jerusalem later in the day. Jordan, with Egypt, is one of two Arab states with formal ties with Israel which are promoting an Arab peace proposal. Few public statements are expected. Blair ?is coming very much in listening mode?, a spokesman for the new envoy said.

He met Israel?s foreign and defence ministers as well as a top American diplomat in Jerusalem yesterday before talks today with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in nearby Ramallah. Though he himself spoke last week of his hopes of progress, a jaded sense of deja vu pervades both Israeli and Palestinian society ? those few Israeli and Palestinian newspapers that devoted space to his arrival betrayed no optimism about it.

?Blair will aim to advance Israel-Palestinian negotiations,? ran the simple headline in Israel?s left-leaning Haaretz daily. Blair was asked by the Quartet simply to present by September an initial plan for building ruling institutions needed to establish a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. But that more limited mandate could expand later into a more direct peacemaking role between the parties, diplomats say.