More than 100,000 Israelis gathered at Jerusalem's Old City last night, to demonstrate their opposition to the sharing of the city with Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, and the relinquishing to the Palestinians of the Temple Mount, as envisaged in President Clinton's peace proposals.
Thousands of Israeli police were deployed, but the gathering passed off almost without incident, with only a handful of right-wing extremists arrested. Though characterised by its organisers as apolitical, the driving forces behind the rally came from the Israeli political right, and Jerusalem's right-wing Mayor, Mr Ehud Olmert, a member of the opposition Likud party, drew tumultuous applause when he declared that "Jerusalem will not be divided".
Mr Olmert used the opportunity to castigate President Clinton. "You were a great friend to Israel for eight years," he said. "What a pity. . . that what we will remember is that you, Bill Clinton, were the first president in American history to recommend the dividing of Jerusalem."
In a farewell address to American Jewish leaders in New York on Sunday, Mr Clinton had defended his peace proposals - his last-ditch effort to broker a deal before he leaves office on January 20th.
"The alternative to peace is being played out before our very eyes," the President said, referring to the three months of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "The only consequence of further delay will be greater loss and blood and tears. There is no choice but to create two states and make the best of it."
At the heart of Mr Clinton's plan, as he put it, was the notion that heavily Arab-populated areas in Jerusalem should come under Palestinian sovereignty, "for why should Israel want to govern in perpetuity the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians?" This would leave a "Jewish Jerusalem", he said, "larger and more vibrant than any seen in history".
Though vowing not to hand the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, has accepted the Clinton proposals.
The Palestinians have detailed two dozen objections to the Clinton peace plan, and the senior Palestinian negotiator, Mr Abu Ala, said flatly yesterday that Mr Clinton's ideas could not serve "as a basis for future negotiations or a future settlement".
Mr Clinton is sending his top Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, back to the region tomorrow for what must, by definition, be his final effort to achieve at least a framework for a future peace deal.
AFP adds:
A Palestinian was shot dead by Jewish settlers yesterday, while Palestinian gunmen opened fire for the first time in weeks on the settlement of Gilo near Jerusalem a move that has prompted Israeli military retaliation in the past, witnesses said.
Hospital sources said Mohamed Ahmed Suf (27) was killed by settlers after he threw rocks at them in the village of Hares near a motorway southwest of Nablus in the West Bank, residents said.
Also in the West Bank, Palestinians shot an Israeli child as he travelled in a car near the Givat Zeev settlement near Jerusalem. The child was listed in serious condition at Jerusalem's Hadasah Hospital, military sources said.
In another incident in the Gaza Strip witnesses said four Palestinians had been wounded by Israeli tank fire from the Israeli settlement of Rafah-Yam, near the Egyptian border.
The shelling damaged a number of homes and a Palestinian police post. Shots were also fired at the Israeli troops.
In the West Bank village of Al-Khader near Bethlehem, three Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli soldiers who fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at stone throwers, medical sources said.