Israel's new Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, today holds his first White House talks with President Bush, and will demand that the Palestinian Authority work with Israel to prevent Intifada violence in the shadow of another upsurge in the West Bank and inside Israel.
Yesterday morning, Palestinian gunmen shot dead Baruch Cohen, a father of six, near a settlement south of Jerusalem.
Mr Cohen (58), whose eldest son Amnon serves as the Israeli army's liaison officer with Palestinian security forces in the Hebron area, was wounded by the gunfire, lost control of his car, smashed into a truck and died.
In the wake of the shooting, the army renewed its recently lifted blockade of the nearby city of Bethlehem into which the gunmen allegedly fled and settler leaders demanded a renewal of the blockades of all West Bank cities. The Israeli army commander in the area, Brig Gen Benny Gantz, asserted that the Palestinian Authority's police could have prevented the escape of the gunmen since, he said, they must have driven past at least one Palestinian police roadblock. "If they had really wanted to, they could have done something in this regard," he said. The Palestinian Authority's security apparatus has been increasingly blamed by Israel for failing to thwart anti-Israeli attacks and even for orchestrating some of the violence.
In Washington, Mr Sharon asserted that the Authority was deepening its involvement in terror. Back home, his Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, was blunter: "I point the finger of blame at one man alone, Yasser Arafat," he said.
Israeli officials are also claiming Authority involvement in the firing, overnight on Sunday, of three mortar shells from Gaza, across the border, into Israel. An Israeli soldier was injured by the shelling, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz - the first such attack from Gaza into Israel in decades.
The attack, blamed by Israel on Mr Arafat's Force 17 presidential guard unit, prompted Israeli military officials, speaking privately, to demand government permission for a "forceful response." Mr Ben-Eliezer said, however, that while the shellfire was "unacceptable", Israel would not be dragged into a counter-productive escalation.
Although Mr Sharon has for years derided the viability of a security partnership with the Palestinian Authority, he has changed tone somewhat since taking over the prime ministership earlier this month, and now speaks often of the need to resume contacts with Palestinian security personnel, in order to "lower tension."
Aides say, nevertheless, that he will not wait an unlimited period for Mr Arafat to make a concerted effort to stop the violence.
Mr Sharon, who held talks yesterday at the Pentagon, is expecting a sympathetic response from President Bush to his demand for a halt to violence as a precondition for renewed peace negotiations.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell told the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby group yesterday that, "first and foremost, the violence has to stop." He added that "the United States stands ready to assist, not insist," in an address reflecting President Bush's intention to support peace but adopt a less involved approach that his predecessor, Mr Bill Clinton.
According to a recent cable home from Israel's ambassador to the US, Mr David Ivri, the Americans have concluded that Mr Arafat has not made the hoped-for transition from terrorism to politics.
In Northern Israel yesterday, meanwhile, the body of Yitzhak Kuartas, a security officer at the border kibbutz of Menara, was discovered. Mr Kuartas had been missing since the weekend, and police blamed Palestinian "nationalists" for his killing, and for the theft of dozens of weapons from the kibbutz armoury.