A re-emerging scandal is overshadowing the first serious efforts in a month by the US, the Palestinians and the Israelis to revive the Middle East peace process. It concerns the appointment of the attorney-general earlier this year.
The police have reportedly uncovered "grave findings" concerning the role of the Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, in the affair. They are said to be recommending criminal charges against three of his key allies.
The US special Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, is expected in the region today, for talks first with the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and then with Mr Netanyahu. As a precondition for further negotiations, Mr Netanyahu is demanding concerted action by the Palestinian Authority against Islamic extremists. Mr Arafat is demanding a halt to Israeli construction at the planned 6,500-home Har Homa neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.
Mr Ross's delicate mission is not merely to bring the two leaders back to the negotiating table but to find a way of ensuring that, once there, they proceed towards a full and final peace deal.
At a conference of EU and Mediterranean foreign ministers in Malta yesterday, Mr Arafat and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, shook hands, smiled broadly at each other, and sounded markedly more determined to rescue the peace process than they had for the past month.
In that period talks have given way to daily West Bank clashes, suicide bombings and the trading of mutual recriminations over Har Homa and other issues.
Both men said they welcomed the opportunity to talk; Mr Ross will be hoping to turn the pleasantries into something more substantial.
But even as Mr Ross was making his way to the Middle East, Mr Netanyahu and his administration were being plunged back into the "Bar-On affair" - the allegations, of corruption in the short lived appointment of a Jerusalem lawyer, Mr Ronnie Bar-On, as attorney-general last January.
A special police team last night handed the Israeli state prosecutors the findings of its three-month investigation into the affair. They reportedly recommended that criminal charges be brought against the Minister of Justice, Mr Tsachi Hanegbi, the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and Knesset member, Mr Aryeh Deri, and the Prime Minister's own right-hand man, Mr Avigdor Lieberman, director-general of the Prime Minister's office.
The police reportedly left it to the state prosecutors to determine how to proceed with regard to Mr Netanyahu himself.
The police team's recommendations are not binding; the state prosecution will decide whether to file charges.
But the very news of the police findings, after an investigation which involved the questioning of 50 witnesses including Mr Netanyahu, is spurring renewed talk of government crisis.