MIDDLE EAST: Israel yesterday allowed 25,000 Palestinians to enter the country for work, and prepared a list of 100 Palestinian "security prisoners" for imminent release, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his cabinet colleagues he might shortly order the dismantling of several sparsely populated West Bank settlement "outposts". David Horovitz reports from Jerusalem.
But along with these first faint signs of movement on the peace process - ahead of summit talks on Wednesday in Aqaba with President Bush and the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas - came reminders of how profound is the gulf between Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the key issues of dispute.
An American advance party is trying to hammer out a joint statement to be issued at the Aqaba summit or, failing that, to find agreement on separate texts to be read out by each side. However, Mr Sharon apparently won't meet a Palestinian demand that he declare an "end to the occupation" and it is not clear what language he is prepared to use regarding future Palestinian statehood. And Mr Abbas is baulking at an Israeli demand that he explicitly recognise Israel as a Jewish state, and thus effectively acknowledge that he will not seek to redraw Israel's demographic balance via an influx of millions of Palestinian refugees.
Meanwhile, criticism is mounting from the right flank of Mr Sharon's coalition over the warmth of his embrace of Mr Abbas and the initial gestures he is making toward the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu, the finance minister from Mr Sharon's own Likud party, warned yesterday that the renewed influx of Palestinian labourers into Israel was dangerous, given the ongoing intelligence warnings of plans by Hamas and other groups to carry out suicide bombings.
And the pro-settlement National Religious Party is talking, albeit without much conviction, about leaving the government - talk that could gain momentum, and trigger a domino effect, if Mr Sharon is perceived by the Israeli right to be acting irresponsibly at or after the Aqaba talks.
Mr Abbas is predicting that he will have reached a ceasefire agreement with Hamas within the next two or three weeks, as a preface to what he has assured Mr Sharon will be a determined effort to round up the men who are orchestrating bombings.
But there are reports that Hamas is demanding the release of 6,000 prisoners from Israeli jails as a precondition, and that it is prepared only for a truce lasting three months - conditions rejected by Israel.
When the two men met last Thursday, Mr Abbas is said to have asked Mr Sharon to give him more time to reconstitute the Palestinian Authority security forces before Israel pulls out of the major West Bank cities, to prevent the bombers from exploiting a vacuum. Mr Sharon, it is now being reported, told Mr Abbas that there would no further assassinations of Intifada leaders unless Israel had intelligence warnings of a genuine "ticking bomb" - a bomber en route to carry out an attack.
Aides to Mr Arafat, flexing their muscles, have apparently been pushing to have him invited to Aqaba; Mr Bush and Mr Sharon are united in unbending opposition. Mr Arafat is also not believed to be encouraging his loyalists in the Al-Aqsa Brigades, also responsible for numerous suicide bombings and other attacks, to put down their arms. Without such an effort, Mr Abbas's hoped-for ceasefire is unlikely to hold.
Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, adds: Some of the principles underlying the Irish peace process might have some relevance to the Middle East, according to the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt.
Speaking at a debate organised by the Fianna Fáil Dublin Forum which was chaired by Senator Geraldine Feeney, Mr Kitt said the aim of a comprehensive peace settlement was conflict resolution rather than victory. This was the first principle: "The parties need to ask themselves whether the cost of continuing conflict with the remote hope of victory outweighs the benefit of resolution, even though the sacrifice of cherished objectives is involved."