Israel's Prime Minister Mr Ehud Barak is determined to set up an "emergency unity coalition", in which Likud opposition leader Mr Ariel Sharon will have a prominent role, within the next few days.
Mr Barak, who met Mr Sharon for several hours on Thursday night and again yesterday, is to meet him yet again this evening to discuss how their partnership will operate. The prime minister has also been meeting leaders of several other political parties - some left-wing, some right-wing, some Orthodox - but has not invited leaders of the Israeli Arab parties or of the party furthest to the right of the political spectrum to join this new coalition.
Mr Barak's political planning is conditioned by two simple factors. Firstly, he has no majority in the parliament, having been deserted by several coalition partners because of the moderate position, offering to share Jerusalem, that he took in peace talks with the Palestinians during the summer. The Knesset reconvenes after a recess at the end of the month; if he has not bolstered his coalition by then, he could be voted out of office.
And second, even though he has not been quite this categorical in public, his aides say Mr Barak now accepts that the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is not a viable peace partner, and there is thus no reason to fear offending him by including Mr Sharon, the Palestinian bete noire, in his government.
While he has been appalled by the vandalising of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus last weekend after Israeli troops withdrew from it, by the arson attack on the ancient Jericho synagogue by Palestinians on Thursday, and by the brutal murder of the two Israeli reservists in Ramallah that same day, Mr Barak's aides say he considers the release in recent days of dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists from Palestinian jails as the most damming evidence of Mr Arafat's abandonment of the peace process.
The entire rationale for the peace process, they note, was that while Hamas was openly committed to Israel's destruction, Mr Arafat purported to seek peaceful co-existence.
But now Mr Arafat and Hamas are allied, with representatives of Hamas participating in Palestinian Authority meetings.
Among those reportedly freed are Muhammad Dief, blamed by Israel for orchestrating four suicide bombings in 1996 in which 60 Israelis died, and Mahmoud Zatame, who is said to have made the bomb that killed 22 Israelis in a 1995 suicide attack.
"The Palestinian Authority has opened the door to Hamas bombings," Mr Barak said on Thursday. "If, heaven forbid, these take place, we will hold the bombers, those who sent them, and those who freed them, responsible."
Although the modalities are still being finalised, Mr Barak's intended emergency coalition would see the head of each new party joining the cabinet. After a month, ministerial portfolios would be distributed. There is apparently no question of Mr Sharon becoming defence minister, since Mr Barak intends to retain that portfolio.