WHILE clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli police continued in Bethlehem and Hebron for the sixth consecutive day, officials of the Palestine Authority were unable to agree on how to deal with a situation sliding rapidly towards a resumption of the intifada.
In the absence of the authority president, Mr Yasser Arafat, who has been touring Asia, this slide could continue. And when he returns to Gaza he may not be able to restrain members of his own Fatah movement who have been to the forefront of the protests - unless Israel makes major changes in its policies.
A Palestinian diplomat recently in Gaza told The Irish Times the situation was "very bad, hopeless. We have been pushed into a corner, so our young men fight back."
Dr Ghassan Khatib, a leading Jerusalem analyst, said "there are only a few contacts here and there" left between the two sides - which "do not add up to a peace process."
Mr Arafat's intelligence chiefs have apparently adopted contradictory positions. While Mr Jabril Rahjoub, who is in charge of the West Bank, has interposed his police between demonstrators and Israelis; in Gaza, Mr Muhammad Dahlan has revealed that the Palestinian security forces had suspended co-operation with Israel.
The Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr Ahmad Qurei, said the Palestinian security forces were in a difficult situation. They were being accused of acting as a "bodyguard for the Israeli bulldozers confiscating Palestinian land". He denied the increasingly angry Palestinian public was forcing the authority to take a hard line against the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinians simply wanted Israel to abide by "the rules of the peace process, Mr Qurei continued, "which say that settlements and Jerusalem arc issues to be kept for determination in the permanent status" negotiations. "Mr Netanyahu wants to settle the situation on the ground with bulldozers. Nobody will accept it."
Israel's six security demands (including mass arrests of opposition activists and extradition of Palestinian suspects) were not acceptable, he said. "We are meeting our commitments under the agreements . . . We must sit at the table and discuss permanent status and implementation of the interim agreements" providing for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza. If the two sides do not sit and talk, he believed the situation would "become very dangerous".
Although the latest Palestinian opinion poll showed that support for the peace process remained steady at about 75 per cent, there is increasing dissatisfaction with the fact that protracted negotiations seem to produce little on the ground for the Palestinians.