Over the furious protests of Jewish settlers and their political champions, the Israeli parliament was last night set to vote its overwhelming support for the Wye peace deal with the Palestinians, clearing the path for a new Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory tomorrow night.
After two full days of debate, the Knesset was finally to give its approval to the accord, signed in the White House last month at the end of the US-brokered Wye summit talks. The accord provides for three phased withdrawals in the West Bank over a 12-week period.
The first of these, now set to be implemented tomorrow night, involves a hand-over to Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority of some 2 per cent of the West Bank, in an area around the northernmost Palestinian city of Jenin. Today the Palestinians are to publish a paper on halting "anti-Israeli incitement" and details of the planned confiscation of illegal weapons in Palestinian territory.
If all goes as planned, 250 Palestinian prisoners are to be released by Israel on Friday.
The Israeli cabinet is to meet tomorrow to rubber-stamp the final arrangements for the withdrawal, the first concrete move in the peace process since early 1997, when Israeli troops withdrew from most of the city of Hebron.
The last obstacle to the deal was cleared yesterday morning when, at a press conference with the visiting President Roman Herzog of Germany, Mr Arafat declared that "peace is the Palestinians' strategic choice", and that he would seek to resolve all disagreements over a permanent Israeli-Palestinian accord "in peace and friendship, through negotiation".
On Sunday Mr Arafat had spoken rather differently, telling a rally that the Palestinians would "take aim" with their rifles if they were prevented from praying in Jerusalem. Mr Netanyahu said then that those remarks required a "public correction". Yesterday he pronounced himself satisfied with Mr Arafat's new formulations.
Pro-settler politicians castigated the Wye deal throughout the two days of Knesset debate, and also protested yesterday that they had been shown maps detailing only the immediate 2 per cent withdrawal, rather than the full 13 per cent that is to be handed over to Mr Arafat in the next 12 weeks.
The hardline legislators also pronounced themselves horrified by a briefing yesterday by the Israeli army chief-of-staff, Shaul Mofaz, to the effect that Mr Arafat's officials have been negotiating with the radical Hamas Islamic movement, seeking to arrange, not a permanent halt to attacks on Israel, but a temporary ceasefire, for the three-month duration of the Wye deal.