TO judge by what Israeli and Palestinian officials were saying here yesterday, President Clinton is wasting precious electioneering time trying to salvage Middle East peace efforts.
Mr Limor Livnat, a loyal cabinet supporter of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, insisted the prime minister would not be making any compromises at all since it was Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat who had brought the process to its knees.
Mr Ahmad Tibi, one of Mr Arafat's closest advisers, countered equally flatly that unless Israel was prepared to commit itself explicitly to a timetable for implementing all aspects of the peace accords, with no modifications or renegotiation, the summit would collapse.
If few believe that salvation will miraculously come forth from Washington, fewer still envisage any kind of calm being maintained for long. Ever since Israeli soldiers and Palestinian policemen started shooting at each other last week, commentators in Jerusalem have been drawing ominous comparisons between this conflict and that in Bosnia. Doomsday prognoses are being aired at every Israeli and Palestinian coffee shop.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, said yesterday he believed the stationing of Israeli tanks outside Palestinian cities had helped prevent a resurgence of conflict in recent days. He reiterated that the army would re-enter Palestinian areas if fighting flared again.
A spokesman for Mr Netanyahu, Mr David Bar-Illan, has mused about the possible need 19 disarm the Palestinians if there is more violence, but Israeli military analysts say the human cost of trying to take the Palestinians' guns away from them would be devastating and tanks would be of no use whatsoever.
In the past, Israeli officials would speak confidently about being easily able to droll back the wheel" to reoccupy Palestinian cities if the peace process collapsed.
Now that such a scenario is looking increasingly realistic, the extraordinary complications of "reoccupation" on the ground, that is, never mind in terms of world opinion are looking downright horrific.
A new opinion poll yesterday underlined how little confidence Palestinians have in Mr Netanyahu's desire for progress. Ninety one per cent of 500 respondents said they did not consider him a man of peace, 83 per cent were unconvinced of his government's commitment to the process, and an ominous 53 per cent backed a resumption of anti-Israel bombings (up from 24 per cent just a month ago).
A new poll among Israeli Jews, meanwhile, underlined what might be described as the schizophrenia of the Israeli electorate a staggering 80 per cent want to proceed with the peace accords, yet 66 per cent believe it was a mistake to allow the arming of the Palestinian police force a central feature of the accords a majority (54 per cent) believe Mr Netanyahu was wrong to open the Jerusalem tunnel exit under a mosque that set off the violence, but a greater majority (60 per cent) think it should stay open.
The poll, in the Ma'ariv newspaper, however, may point to the beginnings of an anti Netanyahu backlash, with 57 per cent expressing dissatisfaction with his handling of the crisis and 63 per cent assessing Mr Arafat to have gained more from it than the prime minister.
Mr Netanyahu's position is not helped by the gradual withdrawal by his ministers from their initial assertions that Mr Arafat directly ordered Palestinian police to open fire on Israeli troops. The markedly milder line advanced by Mr Mordechai yesterday, for instance, was that Mr Arafat incited the initial stone throwing protests which spiralled out of control.