Unfazed by the latest Arab warnings that his hardline policies could soon ignite widespread violence, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday unleashed a tirade of criticism at the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, and hit back at domestic opponents who are accusing him of duplicity.
In a rare address to the Knesset that sounded more like an election campaign speech, Mr Netanyahu made plain his revulsion for the Oslo peace accords that he inherited on winning office two years ago, and indicated that there was little likelihood of Israel carrying out the next land handovers in the West Bank, as set out in those accords, in the forseeable future.
In Cairo on Sunday, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Hussein and Mr Arafat had urged Mr Netanyahu to implement American proposals for resuscitating the long-stalled peace effort, and warned that protracted deadlock could lead to uncontrollable violence.
The evidence to underline those fears is readily available: last weekend in the Gaza Strip, uniformed Israeli and Palestinian forces dug trenches and faced off yards apart, guns cocked, in a dispute over the fairly petty issue of whether a Palestinian minister would be allowed to lead a convoy of vehicles along an Israeli-controlled coastal road.
Such disputes, over such relatively marginal matters, are becoming increasingly frequent, and relations between the uniformed Palestinian police force and the Israeli army increasingly fraught.
In addition to the Arab warnings directed against him, Mr Netanyahu has in recent days seen his credibility badly undermined. He has been accused by the country's popular President Ezer Weizman of misleading the people over the true state of peace negotiations, and clashed with both his cabinet colleague Mr Ariel Sharon and with the army's chief of staff, Gen Amnon Shahak, over apparent inconsistencies in his public statements.
In the Knesset yesterday, the left-wing member Mr Yossi Sarid said Mr Netanyahu was acting like a man on a drugs high.
Characteristically, the prime minister responded with a calculated offensive, primarily targeted at Mr Arafat. The peace stalemate, he insisted, was not his fault but that of his Palestinian counterpart, who was consistently failing to "honour his commitments", and whose regime in Gaza and the West Bank was responsible for ongoing "wild incitement" against Israel.
As a precondition for further peace progress, Mr Netanyahu demanded that Mr Arafat set up a new mechanism for preventing such incitement. He also demanded that Mr Arafat extradite suspected Palestinian murderers of Israelis for trial in Israel, that he reduce the Palestinian police force to the size mandated by the Oslo accords, collect illegal weapons, and reconvene the Palestine National Council to cancel the PLO's guiding covenant - something that the previous government accepted had already been done.
Against a chorus of opposition heckling, the prime minister then claimed that the previous Labour government had only secured approval for the Oslo accords by "cheating the public" and "bribing" a member of the Knesset. The rhetoric seemed more appropriate to an election rally, and even if Mr Netanyahu does not have elections in mind at present, he was certainly working to bolster a leadership image under ever-heavier attack.
Reuters adds: Branding Mr Netanyahu a liar, the head of Israel's main opposition party told parliament yesterday the prime minister was leading the country towards war with the Palestinians.
The attack by the Labour party leader, Mr Ehud Barak, marked a new intensity in the opposition's campaign to push Mr Netanyahu towards a deal with the Palestinians or push him out of office. "Instead of peace, you are bringing us closer to war," the former army chief warned parliament.