President Clinton yesterday staked his foreign policy reputation on a Middle East summit in Maryland aimed at salvaging the Oslo peace agreement after 18 months of stagnation and festering confrontation.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, arrived by helicopter at the Wye River Plantation, a resort on Maryland's eastern shore, after an impassioned pep-talk from Mr Clinton on the White House lawn.
"These two leaders have the power to lead their people to peace," Mr Clinton said. After formally opening the talks, he was due to be at hand over the weekend to spur progress.
He said yesterday: "We'll do everything we can to make peace possible at the Wye River and beyond. But in the end it is up to the leaders standing with me today, to their courage, their vision, their determination and a shared under standing that the future has to be shared in peace."
The intensive talks, which are expected to last through the weekend, will focus on what was supposed to have been a mere detail of the interim peace agreement first conceived five years ago in Oslo - the second of three Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank. Differences over the size and ramifications have absorbed US mediators for more than a year. Mr Arafat injected urgency earlier this year by threatening to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally next May.
On the eve of the talks, the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, said he thought the chances were "very good" that a deal would be reached. "There will be a signing," he said.
However, Mr Mordechai is at the dovish end of the Israeli cabinet, which has warned the Prime Minister against making any more concessions.
Mr Clinton is badly in need of a tangible success. His attempt to broker a settlement ran into trouble soon after its inception with the eruption of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Israeli diplomats have said that Monicagate saved Mr Netanyahu from Washington's plans to exert heavyhanded diplomatic pressure to gain compliance with the US plan.
Both sides have already agreed in principle to a US proposal, first put forward in January, for a 13 per cent withdrawal contingent on Palestinian success in eliminating Islamic extremist groups. But on the eve of the Wye talks, substantial differences remained over monitoring of the Palestinian security efforts, the size and timing of the third withdrawal, and the emotive issue of Jewish settle ments.
The construction of Jewish homes on occupied territory derailed the Oslo process in March 1997, and it has yet to recover. The Palestinians demand a freeze on settlements. The Israeli government insists on what it calls "natural growth", but its critics say the phrase is a smokescreen for aggressive expansion. Even as the Wye summit got underway, the sound of heavy plant laying the foundations for new Jewish settlement homes and access roads could still be heard from many hilltops.
Morning radio news bulletins reported yesterday that the Israeli defence ministry has approved the construction of 1,200 homes near the Alei Zahav settlement, three miles inside the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu has defied appeals by Washington by bringing his wife Sara to the talks. He declared on Israeli radio: "I am the Prime Minister of Israel. I do not accept dictates, not on political matters nor on personal ones."