The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, today begins her first visit to the Middle East in an attempt to revive the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, now threatened by recent terrorist bomb attacks in Jerusalem. US officials are playing down the prospects that she will be able to achieve a breakthrough. The bombings, which have killed 18 Israelis, have made her mission much more difficult than originally envisaged.
In the run-up to Ms Albright's visit the Palestinian Authority bowed to Israeli and US pressure by arresting 35 Islamist activists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organisations and closing a pro-Hamas newspaper.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has urged Ms Albright "to bring to bear the weight of the United States" on the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, to crush Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
President Clinton, in a telephone call to Mr Arafat after the last bombing, which killed three Israeli schoolgirls, is said to have told him he must take "unilateral and direct action" against Hamas.
A senior US official is quoted in the New York Times as saying Ms Albright is "ready to read the riot act" to Mr Arafat about cracking down on terrorism. She must ensure that Mr Arafat commits himself wholly and publicly to the pursuit of peace with Israel.
But the Secretary of State will also have to avoid alienating the Palestinians by an over-emphasis on security issues as demanded by the Israelis. The US is still angry with Mr Netanyahu for ignoring its appeals not to build Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.
As well as visiting Israel and the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, Ms Albright will travel to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. As originally planned last July, the Albright mission to the Middle East would have proposed accelerating the Oslo peace agreement so that Israel and the Palestinians would move quickly to negotiations on the final stage dealing with the status of Jerusalem and autonomy for the West Bank. But now Mr Netanyahu has frozen Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank.
There seems little hope in the present state of Israeli-Palestinian relations that Ms Albright can get both sides to agree to move ahead to negotiations on the two most difficult aspects of a permanent settlement. The horrifying images on television of Israeli bomb victims have hardened public opinion in the US against Mr Arafat. This Middle East trip is seen as Ms Albright's greatest challenge since she became the first woman Secretary of State at the beginning of this year.