Two months ago, on the morning after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 21 Israelis outside a beachfront nightclub in Tel Aviv, the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, convened a press conference to issue a ceasefire plea, in English and in A rabic, and pledged that he would make a "100 per cent effort" to thwart any more such attacks.
Last night, following yesterday afternoon's suicide bombing in a crowded Jerusalem pizza restaurant, Mr Arafat issued another statement. He urged the Israeli government to join him in declaring "a comprehensive ceasefire," called for the deployment of international monitors and a return to the peace process, and said he denounced the bombing and "all acts that harm civilians."
After the June attack, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, resisted calls from some of his Likud party colleagues to ignore Mr Arafat's pledges of a new effort, formally declare the Palestinian Authority an enemy organization, and move to end Mr Arafat's regime. This prime ministerial resistance was not because Mr Sharon felt that a new, more peaceful era was going to dawn. Far from it; he has always made abundantly that clear that he utterly mistrusts the PA leader. But he was under pressure from the United States and European leaders to demonstrate "restraint," he recognized that Israel would win international approval if it did so, and he reasoned that Israel's interests were not necessarily best served by ousting Mr Arafat - and plunging the Palestinian territories into anarchy.
As he convened his more trusted ministers and security chiefs last night to discuss the appropriate means for responding to yesterday's blast, Mr Sharon found himself in an almost identical situation. Again, the hawks in his government were urging him to openly confront Mr Arafat and the PA. Again the Americans and the Europeans are pleading with him not to. What's more, because they have been so troubled by Mr Sharon's recently escalated policy of assassinating alleged Intifada kingpins, the Americans were yesterday not merely urging Mr Arafat to put the Palestinian house in order, but also pressing Mr Sharon to pull away from the cycle of violence. "Both sides," declared the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, needed to "act with restraint, reduce the violence" and halt the "provocations." But there is, nevertheless, a new factor at play now: the increasingly open alliance between Palestinian forces loyal to Mr Arafat, and the Palestinian Islamic radicals. Two months ago, when Mr Arafat condemned the suicide bombings, his loyalists were not publicly working in league with groups such as Hamas. Since then, Mr Arafat's West Bank Fatah chief, Mr Marwan Barghouti, has taken to issuing calls for the inclusion of Hamas and other radical factions in PA government, and Mr Arafat has been indicating a readiness to do precisely that.
As they urged Mr Sharon yesterday to refrain from a large-scale military assault on the PA, therefore, the Labour Party moderates in Israel's "national unity government" had less ammunition than two months ago. It was harder for them to argue that, were Israel to destabilise the PA, it would be left in the worse situation of facing off against the Islamic radicals. The hawks from Mr Sharon's Likud party were countering that there was no longer any significant difference between those radicals and Mr Arafat's own regime.
Before Mr Arafat had issued his statement of denunciation last night, his PA leadership colleagues had been reacting to the latest bombing in rather different tones - many of them refraining from condemnation of the attack, and asserting that Mr Sharon was effectively to blame. The series of assassinations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, they said, were having the opposite effect from that intended by Israel. Far from dissuading the bombers, they were making it ever simpler for the extremists to recruit suicide bombers, making it harder for the PA to try and thwart bombings, and discrediting the PA for its perceived moderation in the face of Israeli aggression.
Thus, while Israel's President, Mr Moshe Katsav, was declaring that "there is only one address as regards responsibility for this attack: the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat," Mr Arafat's Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, was countering that "the assassinations, the killings and terrorism that he (Mr Sharon) practised and escalated in recent weeks led to this result." Mr Sharon's cabinet meeting went on late into last night - a reflection of the divisions inside the government, and the continuing uncertainty among Israel's leaders about what kind of response would best serve the country's interests. There was every indication from ministers loyal to Mr Sharon that, at the very least, he intended to maintain the assassinations policy - despite the international clamour for him to stop, and concern at the apparent boomerang effect.
And one thing seemed certain: He would not be acceding to Mr Arafat's call for a joint ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table.