The latest last-ditch US effort to salvage Israeli-Palestinian peace talks appears doomed to failure before it has even begun. An Israeli delegation, led by the Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, is due to begin negotiations in Washington today with a Palestinian team headed by Mr Yasser Arafat's deputy, Mr Abu Mazen.
US officials have been talking with almost desperate optimism about hosting open-ended sessions to resolve some of the key disputes between the sides, citing as their precedent the Camp David negotiating sessions 19 years ago that yielded the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord.
However, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are working from the same script.
Critically, while Mr Arafat is insistent that the talks focus on the next scheduled Israeli troop withdrawal, and is supported by US calls for Israel to hand over some 10 per cent more of the West Bank to Palestinian control, aides to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, have privately been making clear that he has no intention of approving any further withdrawals in the foreseeable future.
Instead, Mr Netanyahu is seeking to persuade the Palestinians to forgo the troop withdrawal, and proceed instead to intensive talks on the "final status" issues - the most complex and controversial aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the future of Jerusalem, the fate of the settlements, and refugee rights of return.
By way of encouragement, Mr Netanyahu is apparently ready to slow the pace of building at settlements - hardly an attractive proposition for the Palestinians, who are seeking a complete freeze on settlement building.
Mr Arafat, who has dispatched only a limited team of negotiators to Washington, with instructions to focus solely on the terms of the troop withdrawal, firmly rejected Mr Netanyahu's gameplan at the weekend.
"Before we start the final status negotiations, Israel should implement all the remaining issues and agreements accurately and honestly," the Palestinian President said.
Further reducing the prospects for success in Washington are the domestic pressures limiting the room Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat have for manoeuvre. At a closed meeting with EU parliamentarians a few days ago, the EU's Middle East envoy, Mr Miguel Moratinos, is reported to have described Mr Arafat as a man in the midst of a "physical and psychological crisis."
There seems little doubt that the Palestinian Authority head is troubled by health worries and by the threat posed to his absolutist rule by the resurgence of Hamas under its freed leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
As for Mr Netanyahu, he is hamstrung by the fact that many members of his rightwing coalition will stop at little to block further West Bank land handovers, and that an alienated Labour opposition may not be willing to give him the necessary "security net" to get a troop withdrawal approved by the Knesset. David Horovitz is managing edi- tor of the Jerusalem Report