PLUNGING relations between Israel and Jordan into a deep crisis of confidence, a Jordanian soldier yesterday opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls, killing seven and injuring several more.
King Hussein immediately cut short a visit to Spain and hurried back to Jordan, pausing only to telephone Israel's President Ezer Weizman with his condolences and issue a statement pledging to work personally to reduce tensions between his kingdom and the Jewish state.
But many Israelis hold the king at least partly to blame for the incident, by far the gravest since the two countries signed a peace treaty in October 1994. Earlier this week, he despatched an extraordinarily harshly-worded letter to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of pursuing policies apparently designed to destroy the Middle East peace process, humiliate the Palestinians and push the region "towards an abyss of bloodshed and disaster". The letter was subsequently published in the Jordanian media.
As soon as news broke of yesterday's killings, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, implicitly pointed the finger of blame at the king, deploring what he called recent messages of "incitement" from Jordan, and asserting that they had "created a psychological atmosphere that could lead to such tragic acts".
Mr Netanyahu was less specific, linking the attack to the general Arab talk of violence that, he said, had become all too commonplace whenever the peace process hit an obstacle.
President Clinton counselled against jumping to conclusions about the motive for the shootings, and said that there was no justification or excuse" for the attack.
Mr Yasser Arafat's deputy, Mr Mahmud Abbas, passed a message of sympathy to the Israelis. King Hussein's brother, Crown Prince Hassan, spoke of a "black day" for Jordan and its army.
The shootings took place at Naharayim, a small enclave just across the Jordan border. The enclave was returned to Jordanian sovereignty as part of the recent treaty between Israel and Jordan, and ironically has become known as the "Island of Peace".
A coachload of Israeli 12 to 14-year-old girls came under automatic gunfire while making a visit to what has become a popular Jordan River tourist site. A Jordanian army driver had grabbed an M-16 from a colleague, and was shooting at the group from a vantage point just above them. He then ran towards the girls, firing all the time, until overpowered by other soldiers.
Under the terms of the peace accords, Israelis visiting the site are forbidden to carry weapons. "All we could do," said the group's guide, Mr Ze'ev Kremer, was try to escape".
The Jordanian authorities refused Israeli medical teams permission to enter the area for 40 minutes, according to Israeli news reports. Instead, the soldiers evacuated the dead and dying to a Jordanian hospital 15 minutes away.
Initial reports suggested that the gunman was believed to be mentally unstable. Jordanian officials, nevertheless, said he would be punished with the full weight of the law. A joint Israeli-Jordanian investigation is under way.
The Naharayim deaths come at a time of profound strain between Israel and all its Arab peace partners. Jordanian and Egyptian leaders have been strongly backing Palestinian complaints about plans by the Netanyahu government to build Jewish housing in East Jerusalem and to hand over less West Bank land than had been demanded as part of the next phase of the peace process.
Mr Arafat has arranged an international conference to air his grievances in Gaza tomorrow, which even the Americans, Israel's most steadfast allies, have agreed to attend. Interestingly, in the aftermath of yesterday's incident a spokesman for Mr Arafat said that he was now ready to meet with Mr Netanyahu to try and resolve their disagreements.
However, incidents such as yesterday's are unlikely to prompt greater Israeli flexibility. Exactly a year ago, four Islamic suicide bombings in Israel destroyed the moderate Labour Party's election chances and helped bring Mr Netanyahu to power.
In Beit Shemesh, the home town of most of the slain girls, many residents were yesterday telling reporters that the new killings, carried out by a soldier from the Arab country with which Israel feels it has its warmest relationship, only demonstrated the impossibility of peacemaking.
Nor, as of last night, was there any sign that the shootings might help repair the fractured personal relationship between Mr Netanyahu and King Hussein. Following receipt of the king's letter on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu wrote back the next day, strongly defending his policies, highlighting his efforts to "revive" the peace process and taking particular exception to "the personal level of the attacks against me
It seemed significant that, although he spoke to Mr Weizman and to the Israeli minister of defence before heading home from Spain, King Hussein did not call Mr Netanyahu.