Israel and the Palestinians appear to be on a collision course as they head to Washington for talks.
The Palestinians say that anything short of an Israeli decision to freeze settlements and pull troops out of a large part of the West Bank - at least 20 percent of it - will be the end of the peace process, at least with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.But Netanyahu, whose coalition rests on hard-liners dead set against giving away more land, appears to be trying to gain time by focusing on other issues the Palestinians consider minor.
Bridging these positions in the meetings that were to begin Monday between Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and Yasser Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, would be a foreign policy coup for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Israeli newspapers are referring to the open-ended talks as a "new Camp David." While the comparison to the 1978 marathon negotiation between the leaders of Israel and Egypt at the presidential retreat is imperfect, the two situations do share one aspect: a palpable feeling that time is running out.
The momentum of crisis has mounted almost steadily since the right-wing Netanyahu was elected Israeli prime minister in May 1996.
Netanyahu edged out peacemaker Shimon Peres by combining his main message - get tough on terrorism - with the promise that he would continue the peace process he once opposed. For many Israelis, its existence - with the recognition and truce it implies - is enough.
But for Palestinians, the process launched in 1993 was mainly a means to an end that seemed achievable with Israel's dovish Labor government: a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital - or at least a face-saving arrangement - in east Jerusalem.
Relations under Netanyahu have faltered because of the Palestinian suspicion that the deal is off the table - a doubt fed by inconsistencies in Netanyahu's message.
Netanyahu's lifelong ideology has been that the West Bank is strategically critical to Israel - that without all of it, Israel's narrow waist is indefensible.