Israel's coalition government collapsed yesterday, humiliating the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and reducing him to the leader of a minority government, scrambling to hold on to power on the eve of his departure for President Clinton's Middle East summit.
No fewer than three of Mr Barak's coalition partners - the ultra-Orthodox Shas, the National Religious Party and the immigrant Yisrael Ba'aliya, led by the former Soviet dissident, Mr Natan Sharansky - quit the government, their departures to take formal effect in the next few days, in protest at the territorial concessions they believe the Prime Minister intends to make to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, when the summit talks get under way tomorrow at Camp David, Maryland.
Even Mr Barak's own Foreign Minister and close ally, Mr David Levy, who will serve as acting prime minister in his absence, rejected an invitation from Mr Barak to join him at the summit, signalling that he too has reservations about the terms Mr Barak is ready to offer for a deal.
"He has refused to spell out to us his red lines, the positions from which he will not budge," said the Shas parliamentary leader, Mr Eli Yishai. "We can't be partners on the path forward, if we don't know where that path is leading."
"They are putting their narrow political interests ahead of the national interest," Mr Barak countered. And in a TV address to the nation, he said Israel's "red lines" were well known and had not changed, and included a commitment to Israeli sovereignty in a united Jerusalem, "separation from the Palestinians", and "no return to Israel's narrow borders prior to the 1967 war".
Mr Barak has been vowing for some days to travel to the summit, even if he has the support of "just nine ministers and a quarter of the Knesset". And, indeed, he has now all but reached that parlous position: he has barely a quarter of the 120 Knesset members in his coalition and is temporarily responsible for eight ministries in addition to his normal dual role as Prime Minister and Defence Minister.
Nevertheless, he repeated last night, he does intend to fly out today as scheduled, as the head of a minority government which, he said he hoped, an overwhelming majority of Israelis still backed, even though it constitutes just his own One Israel party and the small Centre Party, and is acutely vulnerable to opposition no confidence motions.
The first such motion is being tabled by the Likud opposition today. If, as is possible but unlikely, the motion is carried and the government falls, it is doubtful that Mr Barak would go ahead and attend the summit, since he could no longer claim to properly represent his country. If, as is more probable, Arab and other opposition mavericks who support peace moves come to his rescue and ensure he survives the vote, he will know nevertheless that his government, in this reduced form, cannot expect to retain power for long, and that he will either have to reconstitute it or declare new elections.
All these political difficulties further raise the stakes at what is already a critical summit. Mr Arafat has made clear that, if no breakthrough is reached, he intends to unilaterally declare Palestinian statehood on September 13th, a move to which Israel says it will respond by annexing occupied West Bank territory - a sure-fire recipe for a new round of conflict.
His leadership in peril, Mr Barak, for his part, is now even more desperate for a deal that will revive his popularity - enabling him either to build a new coalition in the existing parliament or face the electorate confident of success.