A day after the collapse of the Camp David peace talks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders appeared to be working to prevent a feared outbreak of violence, and to be clinging to faint hopes that the dialogue might yet be renewed and ultimately yield a break through.
Returning to Israel from the summit, the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, who must now battle to rebuild a majority coalition, said he was deeply disappointed by the summit's failure: "We haven't succeeded, yet," he declared, adding that the Palestinians had not internalised that "for real peace, you have to give up part of your dreams". Pro- and anti-Barak demonstrators engulfed the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem last night, the supporters endorsing his willingness to compromise, the opponents decrying it.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that he had been prepared:
to cede almost 90 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinians;
to see a sovereign Palestinian capital, to be called "al-Quds" (the Arabic name for Jerusalem) established on the city's outskirts;
to have an access route built from al-Quds to the Temple Mount;
to institute a mechanism for "joint control" in the walled Old City.
In return, the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, was ready to see several major settlements adjacent to Jerusalem annexed to the city and brought under Israeli sovereignty.
The Palestinian leader, it is understood, however, insisted on full sovereignty throughout East Jerusalem and the entire Old City, with the exception of the Jewish Quarter and an access route to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. It was, apparently, Mr Barak's unbending refusal to cede sovereignty on the Temple Mount - site of the two Jewish temples, and holy to Muslims as the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven - that doomed the summit.
Mr Arafat reportedly reminded Mr Barak that "our mosques" were atop the Mount. Mr Barak reportedly retorted that "our Temple is underneath them". On his return to Gaza - via Alexandria, where he briefed President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt - a smiling, waving, victory-saluting Mr Arafat asserted that he had "stood up for Palestinian rights, pan-Arab rights" at the summit, and that, come what may, Jerusalem would become the capital of the independent state of Palestine.
Mr Barak was last night meeting Israeli security chiefs, to assess the prospects for a slide into confrontation following the summit's failure. But his army chief of staff, Gen Shaul Mofaz, stressed yesterday that "Israel has no interest in conflict" and that his soldiers would not fire "the first shots". He added he had instructed his commanders to maintain their co-operation with their Palestinian police colleagues, and said he intended to meet with Palestinian security chiefs himself.
Gen Mofaz was adamant that "the negotiations have not run their course", and said he "greatly hoped" that the diplomatic effort would continue.
Mr Faisal Husseini, head of Jerusalem affairs in the Palestinian Authority, echoed many of these sentiments, insisting that the Palestinians would not initiate conflict either, that he hoped there would be no outbreak of violence, and that he was awaiting the formation of a new Israeli governing coalition to try and overcome the obstacles that proved insurmountable at Camp David.
While Palestinians held a general strike in the West Bank yesterday, to protest at Israel's negotiating positions at the summit, a protest march tentatively planned for East Jerusalem, which would likely have caused Arab-Jewish friction, was cancelled.
While the Israeli prime minister is adamant that all progress made at Camp David is "invalid" since no full accord was reached, it is clear that, in any future dialogue, each side will want to invoke the concessions tentatively agreed at the summit by the other. Israeli opposition parties are therefore castigating Mr Barak for having "put the issue of Jerusalem on the table".
And on the far left, there is criticism that he did not go far enough. Acknowledging that Mr Barak had moved "further than any of his predecessors towards the Palestinians," a veteran leftwing activist, Mr Uri Avneri, lamented that he hadn't "gone the final 100 yards under fire".
But Mr Barak is more troubled by the right wing than the left, since he needs to win back the support of at least some of the parties now in opposition if he is to survive a no-confidence motion in the Knesset next week. Despite the insistence by the Likud leader, Gen Ariel Sharon, that "we have to bring down this government", contacts are underway for a left-right unity coalition.