The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has been telling reporters in the US this week that peace is "within our reach". Back in Jerusalem, Hebron and Gaza City yesterday another day of violence and protest underlined the sense that peace is passing this region by, and that the much-discussed "window of opportunity" for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is now almost shut.
Yesterday's clashes were far milder than those on Thursday when, according to Palestinian figures, eight Palestinians were shot dead in Gaza by Israeli troops and almost 200 injured in protests marking the 50th anniversary of the naqba - the establishment of Israel, and the consequent Palestinian catastrophe. The worst violence yesterday was in Hebron, where Palestinians hurled stones and petrol bombs, the Israeli army shot back in response, and an Israeli newspaper photographer, who, the army said, had "moved from his place", was among the more serious casualties, being hospitalised with a rubber bullet in the stomach.
In Gaza City, Jamal Wahaibi (45), one of Thursday's fatalities, was brought to his grave by a procession of several thousand Palestinians, who vowed to avenge his death and to achieve independent statehood. The Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, said the newly dead had been "hunted down" by a few Israeli soldiers and settlers "in a barbaric act . . . against our people."
An Israeli newspaper columnist, Haggai Segel, took a contrasting view, accusing Mr Arafat of sending the latest victims to their deaths "in cold blood".
On Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, about 20,000 Palestinians gathered yesterday for prayers, with a large contingent of Israeli police deployed around the compound. A police chief said there was intelligence information suggesting major disturbances were imminent.
In the event, some worshippers threw stones at the Israeli forces, but the Muslim officials who administer the site quickly intervened. When some of the stones fell onto the Western Wall plaza below, Jewish worshippers were evacuated for about half-an-hour.
In the US, meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu continued to resist American calls for another 13 percent troop withdrawal from occupied West Bank land, while his officials talked up speculation about possible early elections - speculation apparently designed to suggest that a peace-reviving decision was at hand, and that the prime minister was moving to deal with the possibility of being forced to win re-election because of the defection of right-wing hardliners from his current coalition.
Government officials also gave tough briefings about likely Israeli responses to threatened EU sanctions against West Bank settlers' exports. "If the EU boycotts exports from factories in the territories, where about 10 per cent of Israelis live," said a Trade Ministry official, "we'll boycott 10 per cent of their exports to Israel."
South Africa called for a "speedy Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land" yesterday after Israeli soldiers shot and killed eight Palestinians when mass demonstrations turned violent. South Africa was "dismayed" to learn of the deaths in the Gaza Strip on Thursday during mass protests to mark Israel's 50th anniversary, the foreign affairs ministry in Pretoria said in a statement.