The latest Middle East peace row, over new Israeli conditions for territorial compromise, is further straining relations with Washington, and underlining how far US support has swung away from Israel and towards the Palestinians in the 2 1/2 years since the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, came to power.
Mr Netanyahu, who is demanding new Palestinian pledges to curb incitement and to refrain from a unilateral declaration of independent statehood next May, has been badly rocked by Washington's flat rejection of his new peace conditions.
In a telephone conversation with the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, on Thursday, the Israeli Prime Minister was reportedly reduced to claiming that his demands were not new at all, but were, rather, fully in line with the provisions of the Wye Summit peace deal brokered in October by the US. But Ms Albright was not impressed, and her spokesman has stated that it was "inappropriate to add new conditions". The Americans are anxious to smooth over this latest obstacle in the next few days - before the planned arrival in the region of President Clinton on December 12th. Otherwise Mr Clinton, as at the Wye River retreat, may have to spend much of his four day visit to the region troubleshooting.
The Palestinians, for whom the Clinton visit will represent an unprecedented implicit endorsement of their aspirations to statehood and full independence, are desperate that the trip go ahead as planned.
To that end, the Palestinians have arrested at least one of those involved in an attack on a soldier in the West Bank last Wednesday - the incident that prompted the new Israeli demands.
And the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and his ministers and top officials were last night meeting to discuss arrangements for the scheduled convening in Gaza of the Palestine National Council on December 14th - the forum, to be attended by President Clinton, at which the Palestinians are to publicly renounce anti-Israeli clauses in the guiding PLO covenant.
It was at Mr Netanyahu's prompting that Mr Clinton is coming to Gaza.
But many in the Israeli government, and even some of Mr Netanyahu's closest aides, now say privately that the Clinton trip could turn out to be a major own goal for Israel, unnecessarily conferring legitimacy on Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority and generating unstoppable momentum toward statehood.
Mr Netanyahu's aides have been working frantically behind the scenes to try to minimise the potential propaganda value of the visit for the Palestinians, urging Mr Clinton, for example, not to fly into the newly-opened Gaza International Airport, and to keep the Gaza section of his trip as short as possible.
But the Clinton administration, which privately blames Mr Netanyahu far more than Mr Arafat for nearly two years of negotiating deadlock that preceded the Wye deal, is not inclined to be overly sympathetic to the Israeli itinerary suggestions.