Spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei urges an Intifada against Israel

As far as Iran is concerned that is the model for what the Palestinians should be following.

Ayatollah Khamenei has said recently that the Palestinian uprising resulted from Hezbollah's efforts to oust the Israelis from Lebanon.

The conference secretary, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, is now a reformist deputy in the Iranian parliament, but he was Iranian ambassador in Syria in the early 1980s and he played a crucial role in establishing Hezbollah.

Referendum call

Mr Mohtashemi said this week that the Middle East peace process was dead and that this conference was aimed at helping consolidate the unity that the Intifada had forged among different Palestinian groups.

The gathering is being attended by a big delegation from the Palestinian parliament as well as other representatives of the pro-Arafat mainstream but also by the radical Islamic groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

Its spokesmen on the ground in Palestine have called on the conference not just to produce hot air.

One practical proposal that is likely to be adopted is the idea of calling a referendum among the original inhabitants of Palestine on the country's future.

Clearly there will be no shortage of rhetoric but whether anything more tangible will come out of this conference remains to be seen.