THE Israelis, the Palestinians, and the US sponsors of their attempt to make peace, are finally in agreement about something.
Sadly, it is that the peace process has collapsed.
Predictably enough, the Israelis and the Palestinians are blaming each other. In the Knesset yesterday, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that it was the Palestinians who had failed to keep their side of the bargain - by suspending cooperation in the fight against terrorism, by failing to approve a new, non anti Israeli guiding charter, and most recently by ordering the execution of Palestinians suspected of selling West Bank land to Jews. In such circumstances, he said, "it is very hard to proceed".
In response, a Palestinian spokesman flatly denied that any executions had been ordered. The murder of a second West Bank land dealer in just a few days - Mr Harbi Abu Sara, a father of 10 from a village near Ramallah - was being investigated, be said.
The Palestinian Authority Minister, Dr Hanan Ashrawi, stated flatly that, if there was any murdering going on, it was the "deliberate murder" of the peace process by the Israelis, carried out through the ongoing construction of Jewish homes on occupied land.
Diplomatic to the end, the Americans are equitably blaming both sides for the disintegration. In a speech on Sunday night, in Tel Aviv, to an Israeli American trade group, the usually reticent US Ambassador, Mr Martin Indyk, acknowledged that the trust and the "core bargain" at the heart of the Oslo peace accords had gone.
Israelis, he said, "were promised security. Palestinians were promised self government and, a credible pathway to negotiating their rights in a final status agreement."
Sensitive to criticisms of the relatively lowkey US role in the process of late, Mr Indyk reflected sadly that relations had now sunk so low that there was no "quick fix". Mr Indyk's candour may have stemmed from the fact that he is soon to complete his term here, and will fly home with a sense of years of hard work coming undone. By contrast, the US assessment is that Mr Netanyahu is not going anywhere.
The US Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, who failed last week to get the sides talking again, is reported to believe that Mr Netanyahu could well win a second term in office in the year 2000, defeating even a Labour opposition led by the highly regarded former chief of staff, Mr Ebud Barak.
Leaving such longterm predictions aside, it is clear that Mr Netanyahu's current coalition is unlikely to undergo major change in the more foreseeable future.
There had been talk in recent months of the Prime Minister forging a more moderate, "unity government" with Labour's Mr Shimon Peres. But Labour last week effectively ended Mr Peres's halfcentury of party leadership, declining to appoint him party president, and clearing the path for the resolutely anti unity government Mr Barak's anticipated succession to the party leadership next month.