Palestine was not born yesterday. But the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who had repeatedly pledged to declare independent statehood on May 4th, marked the date with a ringing declaration to his people that "Palestine the state, and Jerusalem its capital, have never been as close as they are now". In a speech on Palestinian Television last night, a huge picture of Jerusalem's golden Dome of the Rock dominating the wall behind him, Mr Arafat praised his "brave people" who had advanced "to the brink of statehood".
Mr Arafat convinced fellow Palestinian leaders last week in Gaza that it would be prudent to delay a unilateral declaration from May 4th - when the five-year "interim" period for peace talks with Israel expired - until at least after the Israeli elections on May 17th. If Mr Netanyahu is returned to office, aides to Mr Arafat now say, a declaration of statehood might soon follow. But if the more moderate opposition leader, Mr Ehud Barak, prevails, they say, intensive negotiations in an improved atmosphere might yield a mutual deal.
The logic of Mr Arafat's argument has won wide support among Palestinian leaders - and was formally opposed yesterday only by a hard-line PLO splinter group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which held a pro-statehood rally in Gaza, attended by about 100 people.
In Hebron, 300 university students held a pro-independence march, which gave way to clashes across the city's "seam" - the line that divides the four-fifths of Hebron now ruled by Mr Arafat from the fifth that remains under Israeli control. Here, and in clashes outside Ramallah to the north, Israeli troops used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.
In Jerusalem, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to close Mr Barak's 8 per cent lead in the polls, called a press conference to declare that it was his determined stance that had forced Mr Arafat to postpone his plans for statehood.
Mr Netanyahu, who is pressing Israeli police to shut down Palestinian offices in the PLO's East Jerusalem Orient House headquarters, has done his best to turn the struggle against Palestinian statehood into an election issue - with little success. Mr Barak, too, has always opposed a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, but he offers voters the prospect of a renewed partnership with Mr Arafat, while Mr Netanyahu, appealing for hard-line support, is demonising the Palestinians in his campaign propaganda.
Having failed to ignite a massive outpouring of Israeli anger over the statehood issue, Mr Netanyahu has tried this week to boost his re-election hopes by branding Mr Barak's Labour-led "One Israel" opposition alliance as racist and arrogant, telling supporters that "these elitists hate the ordinary people, hate the Sephardi Jews, hate the Russians. . .the Ethiopians, the Moroccans, the Orthodox". Mr Netanyahu is seeking to capitalise on comments made at the weekend by a pro-Barak actress, Tiki Dayan, to the effect that the prime minister's supporters were "riff-raff".
