After an arduous day of negotiations yesterday, Ms Madeleine Albright, the visiting US Secretary of State, has managed to persuade Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, to meet jointly with her today. This morning's three-way meeting is intended to pave the way for a successful, deal-making Middle East peace summit in Washington later this month.
In a frantic, morning-to-night series of meetings yesterday, Ms Albright held talks first in Jerusalem with Mr Netanyahu and his senior ministers, then in Jericho with Mr Arafat, and finally returned to Jerusalem last night for yet more talks with Mr Netanyahu.
She said the talks had left her optimistic, but also warned that if no deal was forthcoming soon, there'd be no peace process left. "I think we all know that time is not on our side," she said after her morning session with the Israeli leader. "And if we don't move quickly, we may find ourselves without a process of peacemaking, without an agreement and without the hope of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace."
Ms Albright's current mission is a product of the Clinton-Netanyahu-Arafat meeting at the White House just over a week ago, at which the President, glad to deflect attention form the Lewinsky affair, invited Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat to return in mid-October to finalise the long overdue, next Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu has been telling supporters that "it is up to the other side" to determine whether an agreement can be reached. And he and his ministers yesterday reiterated to Ms Albright a long list of preconditions, including the extradition of Islamic militants suspected of involvement in attacks on Israel.
Mr Abu Ala, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has described the current American effort to broker a deal as the last opportunity to prevent a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood next May 4th - the date that the interim negotiating period, mandated under the Oslo accords, expires.
For all Ms Albright's energetic shuttling, the portents are not good. The Clinton administration, preoccupied with the Lewinsky crisis, is in no position to pressure Mr Netanyahu into implementing the land handover. And the Israeli Prime Minister is already discussing with colleagues what he might do if no deal is reached and Mr Arafat does declare statehood.
On the ground, Israeli-Palestinian relations remain hostile. There were clashes in Hebron again yesterday - the seventh day in succession - and the West Bank and Gaza are still sealed off from Israel.