Though understandably overshadowed first by the Monica Lewinsky affair and now by the Iraq crisis, Middle East peace prospects have been dealt another debilitating blow in recent days.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority have effectively rebuffed President Clinton's personal, last ditch effort to revive the peace process. It may now be only a matter of time before a new, bitter round of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupts, as Palestinians realise that the hopes held out by the Oslo accords - of Israel withdrawing from most of the occupied West Bank, and paving the way for independent Palestinian statehood - will not be realised so long as Mr Benjamin Netanyahu retains power in Israel.
When Ms Madeleine Albright shuttled through Jerusalem and Ramallah last weekend, top of her agenda was galvanising support for the US position on Iraq. But the US Secretary of State was also seeking a positive response from Mr Netanyahu and Mr Yasser Arafat to Mr Clinton's initiative - moving ahead right away with the first of three mini-withdrawals, each from about 4 per cent of the overall West Bank territory, and each carried out in parallel with Palestinian implementation of various security commitments.
Not only did Ms Albright fail to win the backing she sought on Iraq - Mr Arafat elected to send his own mediator to Baghdad, while Mr Netanyahu publicly indicated, in defiance of her wishes, that Israel would certainly consider hitting back at President Saddam Hussein if attacked - but she also encountered stinging rejection on the Clinton initiative.
Mr Arafat proved unwilling to either accept what he considered a miserly Israeli withdrawal, or to forego previous Israeli pledges of future West Bank pullouts. Mr Netanyahu was more negative still, flatly refusing to carry out that first, 4 per cent pull-out, even though Mr Arafat is addressing some of the main Israeli complaints - concerning security cooperation, the jailing of terror suspects, and the formulating of a new PLO covenant.
What Mr Netanyahu's rigid stance now conveys is a complete unwillingness to honour the intention of the Oslo accords - which envisaged an eventual Israeli withdrawal from almost all of the occupied West Bank. Instead, the prime minister is apparently willing to cede control to Mr Arafat of just some 40 to 50 per cent of the territory. Further infuriating the Palestinians, the Israeli Interior Ministry has now approved plans for Jewish building in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud, a major potential point of friction.
Ms Albright privately pronounced herself "sick and tired" of both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat, and continued with her shuttle mission.
David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report.