Just over a month ago, in late July, the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, issued an impassioned public plea to the Clinton administration: send over Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, to help Israel and the Palestinians reach a deal on the year-and-a-half overdue handover of more occupied West Bank land.
Mr Mordechai, the most outspoken moderate member of Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, was hoping that, with US mediation, the deal might be wrapped up before the Knesset dispersed for a lengthy holiday; its strong critics would be powerless to prevent its implementation over the summer; and the fractured Israeli-Palestinian peace partnership might be restored.
It was a faint hope but a commendable one. And it was swiftly dashed. The Defence Minister's appeal fell on deaf ears in a Washington preoccupied with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It is only today that Mr Ross is flying to the region to expectations that could hardly be lower. US officials have been keen to play down the likelihood that this mission will succeed.
But the officials need hardly bother. Although Mr Netanyahu's aides have, in the past few weeks, been leaking claims that an accord - under which 10 per cent more West Bank land will be transferred to Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, and another 3 per cent designated as a "nature reserve" - is almost ready for signature, Palestinians have dismissed such assertions.
If anything the prospect of Israel actually pulling its troops out of more occupied land appears to have receded, certainly according to Palestinian sources. They now talk privately of a concern that, even if a deal is eventually reached, Mr Netanyahu will not implement it - that he will approve the accord, secure the domestic and international plaudits but then seize any pretext to delay a change on the ground.
In such a scenario, Mr Netanyahu might confidently call early elections, in which he could portray himself as a genuine centrist, tough but committed to peacemaking, and could expect to be returned to office with a more sizeable parliamentary majority.
Formally, the obstacles holding up a deal centre on the content of a joint Israeli-Palestinian security memorandum, relating to the battle against Islamic extremism, and on the particulars of the "nature reserve". Behind the scenes, though, the fact is that Mr Netanyahu is not coming under US or domestic parliamentary pressure to wrap up the accord, and thus feels no incentive to relinquish territory.
And Mr Arafat is also none too keen to accept a deal which his critics in Gaza and the West Bank could portray as unsatisfactory.
Israel launched two air raids yesterday on what it called "terror bases" in south Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties.
Mr Netanyahu, who is suffering from "light influenza," had to leave a cabinet meeting on the budget last night on his doctor's orders, Mr Netanyahu's office said.
The Prime Minister went home, leaving the cabinet to discuss the 1999 draft budget.