The “Palestinian Rothschild“, the “Messiah on the Hill“, “The Man Who Built a Palace in the West Bank“: Munib al-Masri has amassed epithets from journalists in the kind of abundance with which he has amassed his collection of rare artworks. One description he would treasure now, though, would be “unifier of the Palestinians”, the “healer”, perhaps. And some of his compatriots have, not for the first time, been suggesting a more formal title, too - “Prime Minister“.

A bright spring morning spent today with the wealthy international oilman walking the grounds of the extraordinary Palladian villa he has built overlooking the tumbling lanes of his native Nablus left me in little doubt about the strength of his personal commitment to overcoming the rift between Fatah and Hamas that has crippled Palestinians’ efforts to negotiate their statehood with Israel.

But despite talk that Masri, long a confidant of the late Yasser Arafat, might be an acceptable compromise prime minister by the parties, the man himself insisted he harboured no such personal ambition - his 75 years and a series of heart surgeries counted against him, he said. Those did not stop him striding boundingly around his newly terraced young olive groves atop Mount Gerazim, a Biblical site his palatial home shares with a heavily guarded Jewish settlement and the tiny remnants of the ancient Samaritan religious sect. Nor have they dimmed the passion with which he expounds his vision of a dynamic Palestinian state, accepting the borders left by the war with Israel of 1948 and enriched by education and the investments of a returning diaspora following his own example.

Two years ago he helped found a political movement, the Palestine Forum, that intends to push a unifying, independent “third way” between Arafat’s long dominant Fatah, now headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and Islamist Hamas, now running the Gaza Strip. Masri has been involved in the reconciliation talks that are scheduled to resume in Cairo next week under Egyptian mediation. He expects to be back again, pressing for agreement on forming a unity government that could reunite Gaza and the West Bank for a year or less until elections can be held.

Abbas’s prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has tendered his resignation, although many expect him to carry on for now beyond the end-March deadline he effectively set for replacing him with a new, unity administration. Could Masri fill the gap? Perhaps not. It’s not the man that matters, he says, but the programme. But watch this space.