Amman  - Jordan - an active participant in the search for a Middle East peace and one of the few Arab countries with formal ties with Israel - will face trying times ahead as a new government containing far-right takes office in Israel, prominent Jordanian academics and politicians said Thursday.

"I believe the new Israeli government, which includes the far- right politician Avigdor Lieberman and other extremists, is set to slide into confrontation with regional and global powers, foremost the United States and Europe," Faisal Rofoua, head of the Political Science Department at the University of Jordan, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Rofoua's comments come after a statement by Lieberman, the new foreign minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, that the understanding reached at the Annapolis conference in November 2007 for the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel would not be binding on the Jewish state.

Both the United States and the European Union have expressed support for the two-state formula that envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Middle East quartet envoy Tony Blair expressed deep concerns on Wednesday over the future of the Arab-Israeli peace process after the takeover of a right-wing cabinet in Israel.

"We face a situation of very great jeopardy for the peace process" in 2009, Blair said after recent talks at the European Union headquarters with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU external relations commissioner.

Rofoua was confident about the backing of ongoing peace initiatives from the West, especially from the new US administration.

"I think that the US President Barack Obama, whom I believe is serious in his drive for Middle East peace, will do his utmost to restrain the lust of Israeli extremists," he said.

The political scientist was less hopeful about Israel itself.

"Judging by practices on the ground, I consider all governments that ruled in Israel over the past six decades to represent several faces of a single coin," Rofoua said.

"Therefore, I believe that Israel will not let reason and logic prevail except when the Arab world will force Western countries to choose between their interests in the region and their support for Israel."

Jordanian Islamists reacted rapidly to Lieberman's remarks, warning the Jordanian government against underestimating the dangers inherent in the rise of a government in Israel influenced by the far- right.

"Jordan should have deep concerns over the failure of peaceful solutions to allow the setting up of a Palestinian state and the growth of racial thought in the Zionist entity
(Israel)," Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Zaki Bani Ershaid, told dpa.

"The dangers of the alternative homeland idea are becoming more intense and the scenario of coercive migration is gaining new strength," Bani Ershaid said, referring to Lieberman's calls for deporting all Palestinians from Israel and the West Bank to Jordan, which Lieberman and rightist Israeli leaders deem as the alternative homeland for all Palestinians.

Bani Ershaid, who leads Jordan's largest political party, believed that the best response to the rise of of what he calls an extremist government in Israel was to support a Palestinian state that "adopts resistance" against Israeli occupation.

He also calls for the withdrawal of the Arab peace initiative, the Arab peace blueprint that would extend recognition to Israel by all Arab states after it quits all Arab territories occupied since the 1967 Six Day War.

Fahd Kheetan, managing editor of Jordan's independent daily Al- Arab al-Yawm, urged Jordan not to have any dealings with the new Israeli government over the latter's failure to endorse the two-state plan.

"Netanyahu and his governing gang do not believe in the two-state solution and any US or European pressure on them will be without avail. Therefore, negotiations with the far-right extremist government in Israel will mean nothing more than extending new concessions," Kheetan said.

In an editorial, the Jordan Times simply expressed despair: "This is an Israeli government that holds out little hope for the region. It is composed of outspoken bigots, in the foreign ministry no less, and of security obsessed little-picture men in the defence ministry. At the helm, Netanyahu is hostage to his own rhetoric and supporters." (dpa)