Almost four years ago, in September of 1996, Israeli troops and Palestinian policemen virtually went to war in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Galvanised into action by Israel's secretive, late-night opening of an archaeological tunnel alongside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, the Palestinians fought several days of gun battles with the Israelis, at the end of which more than 60 Palestinian policemen and 15 Israeli soldiers lay dead.
Ostensibly, the Palestinians were concerned that the tunnel, rather than running alongside the holy mountain, was being dug under the mount itself, and that its covert purpose was to destabilise the two mosques atop the mount and pave the way for the erection of a new Jewish temple.
This was not the case but the fact that many Palestinians believed it underlined the deep level of distrust which prevailed between Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian leadership and the then Israeli government of hardline Likud prime minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
The irony about yesterday's explosion of violence in the West Bank - the worst fighting since the "tunnel battles" - is that it comes despite the relatively warm relations between Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the markedly more moderate Israeli government of the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak.
Evidence of that partnership came just two days ago when it was revealed that the Palestinian Authority has arrested Muhammad Deif, the leader of the Hamas military wing, alleged by Israel to have orchestrated a series of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Even more significantly, the clashes flared on the very day that Mr Barak was putting his entire government at risk, and prompting a furious demonstration in Jerusalem by the Israeli right, by approving a dramatic step forward in the peace process - the transfer of formal control to Mr Arafat of three Palestinian villages on the very edge of Jerusalem, including Abu Dis, where the Palestinians have built an anticipated parliamentary building.
That move - which the Israeli right is portraying as a betrayal of Mr Barak's pledge to resist Palestinian demands for partial sovereignty in Jerusalem - led one of the parties in the coalition, the National Religious Party (NRP), to announce that it was bolting the government, sees two more parties weighing their future participation, and may, sooner or later, contribute to the collapse of the coalition and early elections. It was only by a narrow 56 to 48 vote last night that Mr Barak secured parliamentary approval for the handover.
Mr Natan Sharansky, the Minister of the Interior, whose Russian Immigrant Party is one of those now considering abandoning Mr Barak, was one of the speakers at the right-wing rally in Jerusalem last night. Asked whether he thought the government had much of a future, he said he had his doubts.
Another speaker, Rabbi Yitzhak Levy, the NRP leader, received a delirious reception when announcing that his party was quitting government.
Both yesterday's fighting and Mr Barak's dramatic Jerusalem move reflect the sense, among Israelis and Palestinians, that time is running out on their seven-year effort at reconciliation. In particular, the extraordinarily sympathetic Clinton administration, which has seen a US president devote unprecedented personal energy to the conflict, is entering its final months. The peace process was supposed to have been wrapped up a year ago - with the Palestinians anticipating independent statehood and the Israelis anticipating the formal end to decades of dispute and the flowering of warmer relations throughout the Arab world.
But the depressing reality is that many of the issues over which the two sides were most deeply divided - including the conflicting claims to Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees, the fate of Jewish settlements - have barely been tackled in the seven years since Mr Arafat and the assassinated Israeli prime minister Mr Yitzhak Rabin first shook hands on the White House lawn.
In perhaps a final effort to achieve a breakthrough during his presidency, Mr Clinton has invited Mr Barak and Mr Arafat to Washington later this month. In the wake of yesterday's Jerusalem move, Mr Barak will now be able to claim that he is doing everything he can to push the negotiations forward, to the point of jeopardising his government.
In the wake of yesterday's violence, Mr Arafat will be able to point to the uncontrollable frustration among his people. Sadly, all the signs are that they will be making similar presentations, after similar peace-table stalemates and eruptions of violence, to Mr Clinton's successor for many years to come.
The head of the judiciary in Iran's Jewish espionage trial has said that none of the suspects faced the death penalty.
Judge Hossein Ali Amiri said after the day's closed-door hearing that the suspects had not been charged under Iran's Islamic law with moharebeh, or taking up arms against God and the state. That appeared to leave charges which carry up to 10 years in prison for each offence.
Two of the 13 Jewish suspects admitted to working with Israeli intelligence but denied they were founding members of a spy ring, their lawyers said.