For too long, said President George W. Bush, the people of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear.

“The choice here is simple,” he added. “The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace, and hope, and life.”

The comments were made in a White House speech in June 2002, when Mr Bush became the first US president to declare explicit support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

It is a measure of how little progress has been made towards that goal that Mr Bush’s latest speech about the Middle East on Monday sounded much like the one five years ago.

“This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians,” he said. “The Palestinian people must decide that they want a future of decency and hope – not a future of terror and death.”

The speech signalled the return of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict towards the top of the US foreign policy agenda after a long period of neglect.

Mr Bush pledged $190m (€137m, £93m) of aid to Palestinians and announced plans for an international conference later this year aimed at reviving the peace process. The speech appeared to have two immediate objectives. The first was to bolster Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his moderate Fatah party in their bloody power struggle with Hamas. The second was to signal US support for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, as he starts his new job as envoy for the quartet of Middle East mediators.

Mr Blair is expected to attend his first meeting of the quartet – comprising the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations – in Lisbon on Thursday. The meeting follows weeks of turmoil in the Palestinian territories since Hamas seized control of Gaza last month, while Fatah remained in charge of the West Bank.

The White House views the division between the two sides as an opportunity to throw its weight behind Fatah moderates and present a choice to Palestinians over the future of the territories.

“We believe that this is the moment for everybody to push the go button and try and make this work,” said David Welch, US assistant secretary of state.

US efforts to revive the peace process have been under way since February, when Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, visited the Middle East. But this week’s speech marked the first time Mr Bush has signalled his personal commitment to the push.

Analysts said his renewed focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reflected belated recognition by the Bush administration that its failure to tackle the problem was damaging broader US interests in the Middle East.

Arab countries and European allies, including Mr Blair, have long warned Mr Bush that the conflict was radicalising Muslims and spreading tension throughout the region.

“The administration has realised there is a cost attached to neglecting this issue,” said Tamara Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank.

In particular, the US needed to demonstrate commitment to the peace process in return for help from Arab countries in stabilising Iraq, she added. “The US needs something that looks and feels and smells like a peace process whether or not it has any chance of reaching a final settlement.”

For Mr Bush, his attempt to revive the peace process represents a broader shift in US foreign policy towards soft power and diplomacy after nearly six draining years of war. But, with the president weakened by the chaos in Iraq and the Palestinian territories divided, few analysts expect significant progress during his final 18 months in office.

Haim Malka, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said there was little new in Mr Bush’s speech and questioned what could be achieved without the involvement of Hamas. “It’s important that the US engages in diplomacy,” he said. “But this seems like the repackaging of an old policy. What the administration needs is a new strategy not a new conference.”

Mr Bush is not the first occupant of the White House to turn his attention to the Palestinian problem in the closing stages of his presidency. Bill Clinton also intensified efforts to find a settlement during his final months in office.

Philip Gordon, another senior fellow at Brookings, says Mr Bush’s last-ditch diplomacy holds much less promise than his predecessor’s did. “Clinton genuinely thought he could pull it off because all the pieces seemed to be in place. There is much less optimism this time round,” he says. “Bush is doing it more to avoid being accused of not doing anything.”