The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, is struggling to stay in power just as President Clinton prepares for a peace-making visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Mr Netanyahu, who holds a fragile 61-59 majority, has been given a two-week reprieve, but is facing the prospect of defeat when the Knesset debates a no-confidence vote. As he tries to shore up his government, the embattled prime minister is now torn between coalition hard-liners, who want to keep him from ceding land to Palestinians under the latest peace accords, and opposition members of the Knesset who insist he must move ahead on the diplomatic front. Over the next two weeks, Mr Netanyahu must choose which option he prefers - pressure from the people who brought him to power, or pressure from Washington, from the Palestinians and from the Israeli opposition.
Under the Wye River accords reached six weeks ago, the Israelis agreed to transfer another five per cent of the West Bank to Palestinian civil control by December 18th. Israel carried out the first stage of the redeployment in late November in line with the accords, which provide for a withdrawal from 13 per cent of the West Bank in three phases over three months. But Israeli commentators and politicians alike are predicting that the only way the prime minister can hold his right-wing coalition together is to abandon this agreement to exchange land for security. Mr Netanyahu is now indicating that he is unlikely to carry out the pledges he made at the Wye River Plantation for a second West Bank pull-back.
The peace process has been made more difficult in recent days by the protests and demonstrations on the West Bank and the week-old hunger strike by Palestinians in Israeli jails. They were joined yesterday by another 260 prisoners, so that 2,000 or more prisoners are now refusing food in their demand for the release of what the Palestinian Authority calls political prisoners.
Some fear that in his effort to shore up his coalition and survive, Mr Netanyahu will move further to the right, take more extreme stands, or even abandon the diplomatic process. On the other hand, there is talk of Likud forging a unity government with the Labour Party. But Labour, led by the former army chief, Gen Ehud Barak, has given no indication it is willing to consider a grand coalition. And so, in all this sorry mess, Mr Netanyahu has won what can be seen only as a respite in his fight for political survival. Defeat in a no-confidence vote after Mr Clinton's visit would see an Israeli general election brought forward from late 2000 to early 1999.
Mr Clinton's visit, which begins on Saturday evening, is the fourth by a US President to Israel, and the first by a US President to Palestinian-ruled areas. On Monday, he is due to attend a meeting of the Palestine National Council, at which the Palestinian leadership may agree to renounce the clauses in the PLO charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and to abandon plans to declare a Palestinian state next May. The US President's visit could prove to be a tough test for the special friendship between Israel and the US; there will be questions in Israel as to whether his visit to Gaza is tantamount to US recognition of Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Mr Clinton's visit was intended as a celebration of the latest peace accords he helped forge. Now it appears there is less and less left each day to celebrate.