European diplomats in Israel believe the Netanyahu government is deliberately playing up a supposed crisis about EU policy on Jerusalem for election purposes.
Mr Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Foreign Minister, yesterday invited the diplomatic corps to the city's plush King David Hotel to declare that "Israel will never make any concessions on Jerusalem, never, never", and that a 1947 UN Resolution characterising the city as a "separate entity" was null and void.
The Israel-EU dispute over Jerusalem has escalated from minor news to front-page headlines here in the past few weeks. It began when Israel demanded that European diplomats stop meeting Palestinians in the eastern sector of the city, which Israel annexed after the 1967 war and which it regards as an integral, never-to-be-divided part of its capital. Mr Theodor Wallau, the ambassador from Germany, which holds the EU presidency, promptly rejected the Israeli demand, and noted that EU policy on the status of the city was guided by that 1947 UN Resolution 181.
This stance caused a furore - not only in the ranks of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, but in some more moderate opposition circles as well; the vast majority of Israelis reject the idea of granting the Palestinians, who seek to make East Jerusalem the capital of their independent state, any formal rights in the city.
Mr Sharon began yesterday's meeting by pointedly welcoming the diplomats "to Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people for the last 3,000 years, and the capital of Israel for the last 50 years". In the presence of envoys from around the world, including the Irish Ambassador, Mr Brendan Scannell, Mr Sharon, a retired general, added that he had fought to "liberate" the city and the UN resolution had been rendered irrelevant by Israel's military triumphs and because it was rejected by the Arab world.
The European diplomats were decidedly under-whelmed by Mr Sharon's performance. One characterised it as "a non-event". The very fact that the ambassadors had been willing to travel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv to meet Mr Sharon, this diplomat added, indicated EU recognition for Israel's standing in the west of the city.
Mr Wallau stressed that the EU sought no confrontation with Israel on the issue, and hoped to see the status of the city resolved through peace negotiations. Several diplomatic sources suggested the Netanyahu government was seeking to keep the dispute over Jerusalem in the headlines because of the potential benefits on May 17th, election day. The assertion that Labour's former prime minister, Mr Shimon Peres, would divide Jerusalem was a centrepiece of Mr Netanyahu's successful campaign in 1996. He and his governing Likud colleagues may believe that the conciliatory views on the future of the city held by some in Labour could prove the opposition party's Achilles' heel again.
Around 400 exhausted and hungry Bedouin face another night in the windswept mountains of the Negev desert, threatened with expulsion from Israel and fearful of bloody reprisals if they return home to Egypt.
Men, women and children of the Azazmeh tribe arrived there on Monday after trekking for two days across the freezing desert, protesting that they had been viciously hounded from their homes by Egyptian police.
"The Egyptian police treated us like dogs, that's why we had to leave," said tribal chief Sheikh Salem Sweillam Audi.
He said the Azazmeh began the 40-kilometre march eastwards after their homes in Wadi el-Jaifa were destroyed by Egyptian police over a vendetta with a rival tribe.
Two ambulances and water trucks have been despatched by Israel to the makeshift camp, where military personnel are handing out blankets, clothing food and water. The main complaint was the cold and, according to the Bedouin, three members of the tribe died during the desert crossing.