Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told ABC News' Cynthia McFadden that a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel "hangs in the balance."
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Blair stressed that differences over issues such as how to handle Jerusalem refugees and precise territorial boundaries are "major issues, very complicated issues" but "not impossible issues, if you want to resolve this."
When questioned about whether the Israeli reaction had been proportional to the actions taken by Hamas and if Israel had taken adequate steps to prevent civilian casualties, Blair said, "I don't recognize the concept of proportion when you've got hundreds of young children dying.
"You can debate about proportion or not; the fact is that it's very hard to fight a conflict that is in a small space, possibly the most densely populated space in the world and where Hamas deliberately, of course, put their military infrastructure in civilian areas. So you're never going to have a conflict where you're not going to have civilian casualties. Now should Israel do everything that they possibly can to avoid that? Yes. Can we do more on the humanitarian side? Of course. And we must. But in the end the most important thing is to stop the conflict."
When asked if he believes that Israel has gone over the line, Blair said, "I think what I'm really saying is that there is no line. The only answer is to stop the conflict."
As for the humanitarian situation, Blair said that based on his conversations with United Nations officials, "the suffering is terrible" in Gaza.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gathered with leaders of 49 nations in Annapolis, Md., last year to address the peace process and predicted a two-state solution would be reached before the end of the Bush administration.
Blair said that despite the current bloodshed, the two sides had moved forward in terms of addressing some of the issues "in real detail" in the past year and that other countries in the region have become more involved in the process.
Peace is achievable, Blair said, "because the world outside of Israel and Palestine, particularly the Arab world, has a huge interest in resolving this dispute. ... Because their real fear is that what they see is an attempt by Iran and by extreme elements in the Arab and Muslim world to, as it were, create this movement of extremism which in many ways is based on a perversion of Islam throughout the whole region and the broader world and they see resolving the Israeli Palestine question as an important part of pushing that movement back."
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