The Middle East peace process is truly back on track as the Israeli prime minister, Mr Barak, the Palestinian leader, Mr Arafat, and President Clinton meet in Oslo to honour the memory of Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated four years ago. Their meeting today is expected to endorse the idea of reconvening an intensive session along the lines of the Camp David summit which brought peace between Israel and Egypt, this time to agree the substance and timing of next year's negotiations. They are nothing if not ambitious, covering all the contentious and deeply divisive issues at stake between Israelis and Palestinians, and potentially leading directly into a more general regional peace negotiation.
President Clinton has every interest in seeing rapid progress towards such a comprehensive settlement, if it can realistically be reached before he departs the scene. But he frankly acknowledges it is not up to the United States to dictate the pace - that is the job of the main parties to the negotiations. It is clear now that both Mr Barak and Mr Arafat are keen to make rapid progress if they can, following some delays in recent months. Fundamental issues have been identified, including the future status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars, the future of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, economic relations and the determination of final borders. It looks as if Mr Barak's new Labour-dominated coalition is ready to recognise Palestinian statehood, which would give an agreement the status of a treaty between two independent peoples.
All this represents breathtaking progress compared with the prolonged hiatus of the Netanyahu administration - although the picture was not all negative through those years and there is much continuity in Israeli policies on the ground, partly because of the complexities of cabinet-making in such a fragmented political system. Despite Mr Netanyahu's opposition to a Palestinian state, Israeli public opinion has swung decisively towards accepting it as the best way to ensure stability and peace. This has allowed Mr Barak to make a crucial psychological shift back towards the parameters of the Oslo agreement in the knowledge that he carries most of his people with him.
Everything remains to be negotiated, of course, in a few intensive months if agreement is to be reached by this time next year. Few expect it can be done; but so much of the ground has been identified by now that it is not impossible. Large gaps remain between the parties on all the issues at stake, especially on the amount of land from which Israel will withdraw and how dependent a Palestinian state would be to determine its own destiny. Expectations about the return of refugees will be extremely difficult to meet, while Jerusalem is a hugely contentious symbolic issue. In the wider regional setting there is still a stand-off between Syria and Israel, which blocks progress on Lebanon. Mr Barak is reluctant to stand by Rabin's undertaking to return the Golan Heights to the exact 1967 borders between the two countries before the territory was conquered by Israel. Here US pressure should make quite a difference over coming months. If sufficient progress is made, the multilateral regional talks on economic co-operation, water and security could be reactivated. There is much at stake and now a reasonable expectation that at last the stage is set for movement towards a settlement.