Although Israel is deliberately playing down expectations, all the signs are that a new round of negotiations beginning in the US today will take Israel and Syria, still formally at war with each other, a long way towards a full peace treaty.
Setting off yesterday for the talks in Shepherdstown, Virginia, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, predicted a "very difficult" negotiating process, and said he would not sign a deal at any price. However, he has also prepared Israelis in the past few days for "heavy and painful" compromise.
A senior Syrian official was quoted in Damascus yesterday as saying that agreement has already been reached on a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and, while Mr Barak's aides deny this, few Israelis have any doubt that the terms of the deal, when they are presented, will involve Israel relinquishing the Golan in exchange for normalised relations with Damascus.
Two weeks ago, Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, was saying he hoped this session of talks - which is to last between seven and 14 days - would end with agreement on the "framework" for a treaty.
Now, Mr Barak's aides say more cautiously that they look forward to reaching the framework deal within three or four months, and emphasise Israel's demands for vast demilitarised zones on the Syrian side of the border, and for full Israeli control around the shores of the Sea of Galilee. With a sceptical electorate to be won over, Mr Barak may have concluded that if he strikes a deal too fast, his public may feel that he has capitulated to all of Syria's demands.
Behind the scenes, though, US administration officials are already talking about nominating President Clinton, the would-be Middle East peacemaker who will tonight formally open the talks, for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Clarifications are being sought as to whether President Hafez Al Assad would be well enough to attend a treaty-signing ceremony at the White House, or whether it would have to be held in Damascus. Israeli officials are making plans to establish entire new neighbourhoods in the northern Galilee and southern Negev for the Golan evacuees.
"We don't need to wait for another millennium, another century, or even another 10 years to find a way to make peace with our neighbours," Mr Barak said on departure yesterday. If the talks proceed smoothly, indeed, Israelis and Syrians may only have to wait a few months.
AFP adds:
The Lebanese military said late yesterday that five soldiers had been killed in two days of clashes with Sunni Muslim militants in northern Lebanon. Three civilians were wounded in an exchange of fire, bringing the civilian toll since Friday to one dead and eight wounded, one seriously, hospital officials said.
The clashes began on Friday with an ambush of an army patrol by the rebels, said to belong to the banned fundamentalist Wahabite Takfir wal Hijra group. Security sources said they were headed by Mr Abu Aysheh, a Lebanese veteran of Afghanistan.