The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Farouq a-Sharaa, headed home last night from a week of peace talks in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, having made some progress and agreed to meet again, possibly at the same venue, in about 10 days.
The issues still to be resolved are "not overwhelmingly complicated", President Clinton said last night, stressing that he never expected the sides to solve all their differences in a single round of negotiations.
Despite the soaring expectations generated in advance of this highest-level-ever round of negotiations between the two countries - expectations further enhanced by the involvement of Mr Clinton, who made five separate trips to join the talks - they yielded no concrete results: no formal declaration of a cessation of hostilities; no framework peace treaty; no joint declaration summarising progress made.
"We didn't reach agreements on anything," the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, said last night.
What he chose not to stress, however, was that the sides did markedly narrow their differences in several key areas. In talks on the demarcation of a new international border, according to Israeli sources, Israel did not rule out a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and the Syrians did not insist on a return to the border as it was before the 1967 war.
These stances offer the possibility of demarcating a new, slightly-adjusted border, which each side could portray as a victory for its negotiating tenacity.
Furthermore, in talks on the security arrangements following an Israeli withdrawal, the Israeli sources say, Syria apparently consented to an Israeli presence in an early-warning station atop the Heights. And in talks on normalising relations, they add, Syria indicated willingness for full trade, tourism and diplomatic ties.
"These people really talked about the substance of their differences for the first time," Mr Clinton said.
The Americans have drawn up a "working document" summarising the areas of agreement and disagreement to serve as a basis for future negotiation. An early report purporting to reflect the content of this document, published on Sunday in the London-based Al-Hayat daily, suggested Israel had formally agreed to withdraw from the entire Golan.
A spokesman for Mr Barak, however, emphatically denied this, and the US State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, confirmed the Al-Hayat report differed "in major and substantial ways" from the accurate text.
Had Israel made such a concession, said Mr Levy, "there would have been hugs" from the Syrians. As it was, he said, there were not even handshakes.
The warmest reported movement was a joint visit by Mr Barak and Mr a-Sharaa to the exercise room at their hotel, during which Mr Barak pointed to a Syrian translator on a treadmill and made some wisecrack about wanting to move forward but getting nowhere.
An estimated 150,000 Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv last night to express opposition to a deal relinquishing the Golan Heights. "Together, we'll keep the Golan," read a banner spread across the stage.
Mr Barak has promised that, if a deal is reached, he will bring it before the public in a referendum. At present, opinion polls suggest Israelis might vote it down.
Several Israeli rabbis have recently ruled that the Heights are part of the biblically-promised Land of Israel and that, as such, to relinquish them would be a violation of Jewish law.
More mainstream and influential rabbis have yet to take a public stance on the issue.