The Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, was reported late last night to have accepted all but one clause of a cease-fire proposal, earlier accepted by Israel, brokered by the US CIA director, Mr George Tenet, to end almost nine months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Mr Tenet had been holding what were described as make-or-break talks in Ramallah with Mr Arafat, and had apparently issued him with a "take it or leave it" ultimatum on the cease-fire terms. Although there was no immediate official confirmation, Mr Arafat was said to have accepted all the provisions, except for a clause relating to Israeli "buffer zones" in parts of the West Bank.
Mr Tenet had indicated prior to the meeting that he was intending to leave the region and head back to Washington before the day was out, and the assumption was that, were he to depart empty-handed, a recent lull in violence would soon be replaced by the familiar daily diet of shootings and bombings that preceded it.
In comments that would resonate with both sides, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Ms Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, observed that if Mr Tenet's mission ended in failure, "we can expect a serious escalation of shooting and battle between the sides - and a battle situation between the two will not allow any [diplomatic] progress."
Hours after she spoke, a man was shot dead in his car, apparently by Palestinian gunmen, near the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem. Initial reports suggested that the victim, whose car bore Israeli registration plates, was a Christian clergyman from Greece. The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said yesterday afternoon that Israel had accepted Mr Tenet's revised cease-fire terms. And a Palestinian cabinet minister, Mr Nabil Amar, acknowledged that this had placed the Palestinian Authority (PA) under heavy American pressure. Mr Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, arrived in Cairo at the start of his mission to the region, pledging to add his weight to the cease-fire effort.
Essentially, Palestinian officials said, Mr Arafat was caught between the unmistakable message from the Bush administration that if he turned down the cease-fire terms his ties to the US would be perhaps irrevocably damaged, and the knowledge that accepting the terms, including a clause providing for his arrest of Islamic militants alleged to have orchestrated suicide bombings, would put him on a collision course with a large swathe of his own people.
Recent surveys suggest that 75 per cent of all Palestinians, and 90 per cent of the youth, support such bombings. And Mr Jibril Rajoub, Mr Arafat's West Bank security chief, was adamant that the PA would not be arresting the 20 alleged militants on a list compiled by Israel. "We long ago removed the term `arrests of Hamas members' from our lexicon," he said.
At the talks in Ramallah last night, therefore, while protesters outside called on him not to "capitulate to American pressure", and the local Fatah leader, Mr Marwan Barghouti, warned that "the Palestinian people will not accept the proposal", Mr Arafat had been trying to persuade Mr Tenet to obligate him only to the arrests of new militant suspects, as per the original Mitchell Commission peace package, rather than the re-arrests of the familiar faces, many of whom were freed from PA jails in the early weeks of the Intifada last autumn. But Mr Sharon had already told Mr Tenet that this would be unacceptable, and the CIA chief apparently went along with this.
Mr Arafat was also unhappy with a clause in the proposal under which Israel committed itself, within a week, to opening a process toward ending its blockade of Palestinian cities, and withdrawing forces to pre-Intifada positions, but gave no date for the completion of such a process. Moreover, the Palestinians were troubled by Mr Sharon's insistence that, at the first upsurge in violence, an envisaged "cooling off" period would have to start over, postponing a settlement freeze and confidence-building measures.