Egypt is making arrangements to host a signing ceremony today for a new Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, even though, as of last night, the peace negotiators themselves were still arguing over one last element of the accord. Weeks of talks on the deal aimed at reviving Israeli-Palestinian relations were agonisingly close to their conclusion, with only a seemingly minor dispute over the number of Palestinian prisoners to be set free by Israel yet to be resolved.
Israel says it is prepared to release 350 people from its jails, including some Palestinians convicted of wounding Israelis and others jailed after killing their own people for alleged "collaboration" with Israel. The Palestinian negotiators want the figure raised to 400 and for it to include prisoners who have murdered Israelis.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, is adamant that the murderers will not go free. While the negotiators plunged back into discussion last night, Egypt was already making plans for the festive ceremony, at 5 p.m. today in Alexandria, in the presence of the visiting US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright.
Ms Albright would dearly love to start her Middle East tour with such an event. For one thing, it would enable her to concentrate henceforth on shuttling between Jerusalem and Damascus, to try and revive Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations.
Mr Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority President, flew back from a trip to the Netherlands yesterday, evidently anticipating the successful conclusion of the talks. Mr Arafat has much to lose if they end in failure. In the last few weeks, since Mr Barak came to office, Israel has agreed in principle to open "safe passage" routes for Palestinians to travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to let the Palestinians build a major port on the Gaza coast.
Those agreements, and others, would be scrapped if the talks broke down, and Mr Barak would instead implement the Wye River peace accord which offers less to the Palestinians. Worse, a failure to wrap up the deal would destroy the hopes of real progress raised by Mr Barak's election victory.
Yesterday afternoon, Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, charged that the Palestinians "don't know what they want," and that they were continually "taking one step forward and two steps back". Later yesterday, another Israeli minister, Mr Haim Ramon, left talks with the Palestinians asserting that "everything" would be resolved. The Egyptians are clearly betting on Mr Ramon's assessment.