KING HUSSEIN of Jordan, after a day spent paying condolence calls on the families of seven Israeli schoolgirls killed by a Jordanian soldier last week, last night failed in a bid to persuade Israel to cancel a controversial Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem.
Desperate to break the impasse that has frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and that has created a crisis both sides have described as the worst since peace efforts began, the king held lengthy talks in Jerusalem with the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and even initiated a telephone conversation between Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in Gaza.
But at a press conference with the king last night, Mr Netanyahu was adamant that bulldozers would start clearing the ground at Har Homa within the next few days. "I said that they will begin this week," he stated curtly, "and they will begin this week."
Both the king and the prime minister issued what amounted to pleas to the Palestinians not to allow the dispute over Har Homa to turn into what Mr Netanyahu called "the end of peace".
No single issue should be allowed to derail the entire process, he said, adding that Israeli-Palestinian contacts were under way about other unresolved issues, such as the opening of a Palestinian airport in Gaza.
Later last night indeed it was reported that Israel had given permission for Mr Arafat to fly in and out of Gaza airport, even though all the details of the airport's operations have yet to be resolved.
"I am committed to continue this process," said Mr Netanyahu, "and those are not just words, just things that I say to placate the Palestinians ... We can reach an agreement."
Neither the king nor Mr Netanyahu was prepared to disclose what had been said to Mr Arafat, or whether an Arafat-Netanyahu meeting was being arranged to try and salvage peace efforts.
Nor was it clear whether - at a time when rhetoric on the Israeli and the Palestinian side is rising, band Israeli troops are braced for a new round of violence - the Palestinians would overturn an earlier decision to boycott talks scheduled to begin today with Israel on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, Mr Arafat warned that work at Har Homa - territory regarded by Israel as part of sovereign Jerusalem, but by the Palestinians as occupied land - would destroy the peace process.
"While peace and terrorism cannot go hand in hand," he told a Gaza conference of diplomats from the US, the EU, Russia and elsewhere, "nor can peace and settlements".
A few hours later, the Israeli Justice Minister, Mr Tsahi Hanegbi, said Mr Arafat would be held personally responsible for any new violence, and hinted that the Palestinian leader could be forced into exile, or worse.
In remarks that drew criticism from his cabinet colleagues and opposition demands for his resignation, Mr Hanegbi said that "If there is war, then it will be war to the finish".
"Whoever launches violence could very quickly find himself packing a suitcase and travelling back and forth on the line from Tunis to Baghdad like he [Arafat] did for many years, Mr Hanegbi told supporters. "Nobody who comes to wipe us out is immune, neither `the engineer' nor somebody in a villa."
The chief Hamas bomb maker, Yihya Ayash, nicknamed "the engineer", was assassinated by Israelis in Gaza 15 months ago.
Reacting to Mr Hanegbi's comments, Mr Freih Abu Medein, the Palestinian justice minister, cancelled talks planned for yesterday with Mr Hanegbi on various legal issues, and sniped that his Israeli counterpart "was weaned on hatred of Arabs and Muslims".