Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't matter," says Daniel Barenboim. "But every day, I wake up and feel pain about the situation in the Middle East. Every day."

I do believe him, as a matter of fact. From the moment we meet, just after breakfast in a hotel in Salzburg, I've been trying to figure out exactly what it is about his appearance that seems so incongruous, and now it comes to me: despite his brio and bustling energy, the conductor has incredibly sad eyes. Encircled by dark rings, they are bloodshot, heavy-lidded and almost black. If they are a window to his soul, then his soul must be deeply troubled.

"I can't stand injustice," he says, simply. "Every day it brings suffering, both to Palestinians and Israelis."

This concern for justice has made Barenboim a hero, both in the Middle East and around the globe. A star since the age of seven, when he gave his first concert performance, the Buenos Aires-born pianist and musical director has become something of a living saint (if you can describe a Jew that way) thanks to his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a group of young musicians from both Israel and the Arab world.

This year, the orchestra, which performs at the Proms this Thursday, includes musicians from Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and even Iran.

"When you consider the political situation at the moment between Israel and Iran, then I think that's pretty extraordinary," Barenboim says with pride.

It was his sincere belief in the healing power of music that inspired Barenboim and his co-founder, the late Palestinian activist and intellectual Edward Said, to set up the "Peace Orchestra" in 1999. Two years ago, Barenboim was invited by the BBC to give the prestigious Reith Lectures on this same topic. Now he has followed that with a book, Everything Is Connected, published this week, in which he explains why music can be a force for harmony and change.

"There is a lot one learns from music," he says. "When you play music you have to express yourself but, simultaneously, you have to listen to what the others are playing. Just think what a lesson that is for life; how our life would be and how our politicians would be if they could think like this. That is why every child should have a musical education."

Barenboim speaks in a thick, guttural accent but, despite this, he succeeds in injecting each sentence with a mellifluous, sing-song quality. So does peace reign among the 100 or so members of the Divan Orchestra?

"Look, there are some that don't mix very much with each other and there are some that have become firm friends."

There have even been love affairs between Israeli and Arab players.

"Of course. Outside the music, they have disagreements, normally about the conflict, but there is a degree of respect and even affection from having a shared musical experience."

All of which demonstrates, says Barenboim, what can be achieved when the people of the Middle East meet as equals, with the same rights and responsibilities.

A highlight came in 2005 when Barenboim took his young charges to perform in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The concert was a historic occasion but, as he reveals in his book, it only took place after tortuous diplomatic negotiations.

The Israelis were forbidden by law to venture into Palestinian territory and the Syrians and Lebanese were not allowed, by the laws of their respective countries, to travel through Israeli land, which they had to do in order to reach Ramallah.

That Barenboim overcame these obstacles is testimony to his astonishing ambition and sheer force of personality. He is tipped by many as a future recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Doing the impossible has always attracted me more than simply doing the difficult," he says, emphatically. "When you attempt the impossible, failure is what is expected, so whatever you do to avoid that is already a positive result."

Nevertheless, aged 65 and still much in demand as both pianist and conductor – he is "Chief Conductor for Life" at the Berlin State Opera, and also conducts at La Scala in Milan – he would be perfectly within his rights to scale down his commitments and spend some of the millions he's earned during a glittering career.

There is certainly no need for him to swim in the shark-infested waters of Middle Eastern politics. Barenboim looks at me aghast, as if I have blown a trombone in the middle of a violin solo.

"I'm not involved in Middle East politics at all," he says with feeling. "I'm not active in politics. I do what I do because I believe very deeply that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a political conflict. A political conflict is between two nations on the question of petrol, oil, water, gas or borders, and therefore can be solved through either diplomatic or military means. But what we have here, in our conflict, is a human conflict of two peoples who are deeply and fervently convinced that they have the right to live on the same piece of land. It cannot be solved by diplomacy or military power; it can only be solved by the appliance of human standards of justice based on our common interests."

Barenboim is sitting opposite me in a half-lit alcove of the hotel bar, and as he makes this speech, he leans on the table with his elbows, his hands gesticulating wildly, his neck protruding from his black T-shirt, and his face eight inches away from my nose.

With his T-shirt almost blending into the dark background, he looks like some demented, disembodied figure, poking through a black curtain.

He has a pathological inability to bite his tongue. He has described Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as "immoral", and he is a noisy supporter of Palestinian rights.

His criticism of Israel, where he was raised by his Argentinian parents in the Fifties, has made him many enemies.

He has been called a "real Jew hater, a real anti-Semite" by an Israeli minister.

A few years ago, the Israeli President accused him of "cultural rape" for playing Wagner during a concert – the composer was a rabid anti-Semite and his music is frowned upon in Israel. Earlier this year, the Maestro provoked further right-wing protests by becoming the first Israeli to accept honorary Palestinian citizenship.

Daniel Barenboim has been famous in Britain since the late Sixties, when he married the brilliant and beautiful English cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Together, the couple toured the world, shaking up the classical scene with their precocious talent. Then, in 1973, du Pré was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and in the last few years before her death in 1987, Barenboim began an affair with his now second wife, Elena.

Hilary and Jackie, a 1998 film about du Pré and her relationship with her sister, suggested that Barenboim abandoned the cellist once he met Elena, an accusation he refutes.

"Jacqueline was probably the most talented musician I ever came across," he says softly. "As a cellist she set
the highest possible standards. Ever since, I have demanded more from the musicians I conduct – more colours, more imagination – because, in Jackie, I saw what can be achieved."

He blinks at me. All the fiery rhetoric he employs on the subject of the Middle East has gone. Once again I am struck by the overwhelming sadness in his eyes.

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