Mr Ehud Barak, set to take office next week as Israeli prime minister, yesterday seized on a vaguelyworded comment by President Clinton to underline that he will not be a soft touch in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
At a White House press conference with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday, Mr Clinton may have appeared to offer support for the possibility of a return to Israel of millions of Palestinian refugees and their families, who left or fled their homes at the time of the 1948 and 1967 wars.
"I would like it if the Palestinian people felt free and were free to live wherever they like, wherever they want to live," the president said. "Whether refugees go home depends in part on how long they've been away and whether they wish to go home."
But Mr Clinton then went on to say that a solution to the refugee issue would also depend on "how much land will the Palestinians have, where will it be, how does it correspond to where people lived before". Those added remarks indicated that the president was really contemplating a possible influx of Palestinian refugees to Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rather than a return to former homes inside sovereign Israel.
Mr Barak, however, apparently anxious to dampen Arab and US expectations that he might prove particularly generous in what are bound to be difficult peace talks with the Palestinians in the months ahead, demanded that Mr Clinton clarify his position.
"President Clinton's stance on the matter of the right of return, as it might be understood from his remarks yesterday in Washington, is unacceptable to Barak," his spokesman said.
The US administration, determined to stay on the right side of a leader whose election has revived Middle East peace hopes, was quick to respond. Reassuring messages were apparently passed to Israeli diplomats.
A spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington announced: "The American side has made very clear to Israel that the position of the United States has not changed, and that the [refugee] question should be decided by the parties themselves."
The fate of millions of Palestinian refugees - out of Jordan's four million population, for instance, 60 to 70 per cent are of Palestinian origin - is one of the knottiest issues still to be resolved in talks on a full Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
It is by no means clear how many would want to return; it is clear that Israel does not want them returning to its territory. And the Palestinians are unlikely to push for such a solution.
"We won't ask the Israelis to commit suicide, we won't ask them to give up their state and turn it into a state of an Arab majority," Mr Ziad Abu Ziad, a leading Palestinian politician said. "We are looking for a compromise."
But Mr Barak, in breaking the silence that has characterised his six weeks of coalition talks since his election success, was evidently putting down a marker. His government, he seemed to be saying, will work hard to solve Israel's disputes with the Palestinians.
But, like his mentor Yitzhak Rabin, Mr Barak will relegate the US to a more marginal mediating role, and he will only embrace solutions that boost Israel's security interests.
Millions of Palestinians flooding into Israel, in Mr Barak's view, would hardly do that.
Reuters adds:
Mr Barak last night promised the first Israeli-Palestinian summit in nearly seven months. Spokesmen for the Prime Minister-elect and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, said the two leaders agreed in a telephone conversation to meet soon after Mr Barak takes office next week.
However, neither side gave a date for the meeting. Mr Barak last met Mr Arafat in December during a three-way summit in Gaza with Mr Clinton.
Mr Barak's spokesman, Mr David Zisso, said Mr Barak wanted to restore trust and get the peace process moving by following in the steps of Yitzhak Rabin.
Meanwhile, a 12-year-old girl was wounded yesterday by Israeli artillery shelling from its south Lebanon occupation zone. Zeinab Hamzah was injured when Israeli soldiers stationed inside the crusader castle of Beaufort fired into the village of Yahmur outside the zone. She was hit by three pieces of shrapnel in the abdomen, and doctors said her condition was "medium".
Residents of Yahmur said their village had been under machine gun fire for several hours from positions manned by Israel and its militia allies in the South Lebanon Army.