ALTHOUGH the US has yet to unveil any new ideas for bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders together and stopping the violence that continued yesterday in the West Bank, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has made it clear that he will not allow the EU to try its hand at mediating a breakthrough.
Speaking just before leaving for talks in the Netherlands, which currently holds the EU presidency, and in Italy, Mr Netanyahu issued an extremely harsh assault on European policy in the Middle East, accusing EU leaders of pro Arab one sidedness.
He declared that Europe must not get involved in mediation efforts, which should remain the exclusive preserve of the Americans.
The Arab and Palestinian assumption that Europe "stands behind their every demand ... and ignores the facts", said Mr Netanyahu, was "one of the obstacles" preventing peace progress.
During his meetings, he said, he would urge European leaders "to adopt a balanced, factual, responsible position".
Mr Netanyahu's criticism of the Europeans came as the EU's special envoy in Jerusalem, Mr Miguel Moratinos, has been promoting a new "code of behaviour"aimed at resuscitating peace efforts.
But Mr Netanyahu's comments yesterday underlined that, as far as Israel is concerned, the Moratinos plan is a non starter.
And while Mr Netanyahu acknowledged that no dramatic new US mediation efforts were imminent, a high level Palestinian delegation - including Mr Yasser Arafat's deputy, Mr Abu Mazen, and his top negotiator, Mr Saeb Erekat - was understood to be Washington bound last night, and it is to the US that both sides are still looking for a solution.
The problem, as one Israeli newspaper noted yesterday, is that "at this rate, by the time the American rescue package is ready, there won't be much left to save."
Hours of clashes in Hebron yesterday, following the morning funeral of one of three Palestinians killed there the day before, emphasised that Israel and the Palestinians have slipped back into the daily pattern of the 1987-1993 Intifada uprising.
As in that period, Hamas is rapidly gaining support. Its supporters led yesterday's protests, where Israeli soldiers shot and wounded 31 Palestinians as frustration at stalled Middle East peacemaking boiled over into violence. At the building where the three latest victims were being mourned, a huge painting of the Hamas bombmaker Yihya Ayash, assassinated by Israel, hung from the outside wall.
Mourners picked up rocks as they left the funeral and charged through a ragged line of unarmed Palestinian police to confront Israeli soldiers in full battle gear.
Hundreds of youths, many from the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas group, surged down a strikebound shopping street to hurl stones and several petrol bombs at soldiers guarding Jewish settler enclaves in the heart of the partioned city of 100,000 Arabs. 31 youths were treated in hospital.
Intelligence warnings that Hamas was likely to be planning further suicide attacks led to a secretive meeting on Tuesday between Israeli security chiefs and Mr Arafat in Gaza, with CIA operatives on hand as well.
The difference between now and the Intifada years is that the Palestinians have their own armed policemen. In Hebron yesterday, the determined intervention of these officers helped prevent further additions to the death toll.
But given that their own leaders are castigating Israel for breaching the peace process, and that their own people were chanting yesterday that "the olive branch has been put down, and now we have raised the Kalashnikov," there is a growing likelihood of a repeat of last September's violence, when Israeli and Palestinian forces exchanged gunfire, and 70 Palestinians and 15 Israelis were killed.
David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report.