A LITTLE-noticed remark by Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, about not building new settlements, delivered off-hand in the course of a Sunday night television interview, may well have been the key factor behind a resumption of peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The new round of contacts - a pleasant surprise given the dire recent predictions of imminent violence by officials on both sides - began late on Sunday night. Mr Arafat finally agreed to meet two of Mr Netanyahu's aides, later phoned the prime minister, and then spoke yesterday of resuming formal negotiations on "all the aspects" - the overdue Israeli pullout from Hebron, a timetable for subsequent Israeli West Bank withdrawals, Palestinian prisoner releases and more.
What seems to have paved the way to this modest breakthrough was Mr Netanyahu's comment, during the TV interview, that he did not think it would be appropriate to establish any new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians was taking shape.
The peace talks timetable provides for a permanent deal to be negotiated by May 1999 - so Mr Netanyahu was, in effect apparently conceding to a 2 1/2-year moratorium on new settlements.
Although Mr Arafat is still determinedly protesting against the Netanyahu government's policy of building more homes at the existing 140-plus settlements dotted throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the prime minister's stated readiness not to add to their number is likely to have been received with delight by the Palestinian leader as recently as last week, when contemplating a response to the killings of two Israeli settlers by gunmen from a Palestinian opposition group, Mr Netanyahu appeared set to erect a new settler enclave in their memory.
. In Washington yesterday President Clinton said that talks between the Israelis and Palestinians over Hebron were at a critical juncture and he urged Israel not to pursue a settlements policy that might impede an agreement.
"I don't think that on the settlement issue... anything should be done which would in effect be seen as pre-empting the outcome of something they have already agreed to," Mr Clinton said.
Asked by a reporter whether he agreed with the assessment of some US officials that the West Bank settlement issue had become an obstacle in the talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Mr Clinton replied: "Absolutely, absolutely."
The president said he was pleased that the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president had spoken on Sunday, but said they both needed to work to reach an agreement on a long overdue Israeli troop redeployment in Hebron.
"Sooner or later they have to do something and they've got an agreement within grasp," he said. "The time has come for them to make that agreement."
Earlier the Israeli-Palestinian contacts were described by the State Department spokesman, Mr Nicholas Burns, as "positive." He stressed that without a meeting between the two leaders, there could not be an agreement on an Israeli withdrawal Hebron.