ISRAEL and the Palestinians began their push towards a full and final peace treaty last night, but the ceremonial opening of the talks was overshadowed by the uncertainties surrounding Israel's forthcoming elections.
Convening at the Egyptian resort of Taba for the two day formal opening of talks so complex that they are scheduled to last three years Israeli and Palestinian officials acknowledged that there were massive differences to be bridged.
While the leader of the Israeli delegation, Mr Uri Savir, claimed to be confident that, come May 1999, a lasting, all encompassing peace accord would be ready for signature, that optimism hinges on a Labour victory on May 29th.
The issues on the agenda at Taba were deliberately left for this final series of negotiations - the architects of the peace process hoped that the goodwill built up during the gradual handover from Israel to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would produce an atmosphere conducive to the resolution of these most complex issues.
However, the chances of so upbeat an atmosphere prevailing have faded amidst the violence, disagreement and disarray that have punctuated the transfer of authority in the past two years.
Still, while Mr Savir referred last night to the "deep differences" between the Israeli and Palestinian opening positions, these are relative trifles compared to the diametrically opposing stances that would apply should the Likud and its leader, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, defeat Labour in three weeks' time.
After more formalities today, the talks are not scheduled to reconvene until after Israel's next government is elected.
On the four main issues, the Palestinians are demanding East Jerusalem as the capital of their independent state, the dismantling of all Jewish settlements in the territories, a large scale return of Palestinian refugees, and the marking of a border between Israel and Palestine along the lines of the pre 1967 border.
Mr Peres believes an accommodation over settlements and border lines is feasible - involving an expansion of Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank to encompass some of the settlements, but relinquishing many others and would agree to the return of refugees to Palestinian controlled areas, leaving only Jerusalem as a real sticking point. Mr Netanyahu, by contrast, vehemently opposes the notion of Palestinian statehood, and repeated at the weekend that, if elected, he would renew the flow of government funding to expand settlements.
Some Palestinian sources, nevertheless, note that Likud reached a peace treaty with Egypt in the late 1970s - eventually agreeing to withdraw from the entire Sinai region despite a long standing political platform rejecting so far reaching a compromise.
Mr Netanyahu, these sources note, once completely rejected the peace process and emphatically ruled out face to face talks with Mr Yasser Arafat. In recent weeks, he has indicated a readiness to accept the accords as a fait accompli and to meet Mr Arafat if necessary.
David Horovitz is narrating editor of the Jerusalem Report
. Faulty Israeli military maps were a central cause of the shelling of the UN camp at Qana in Lebanon, in which 102 refugees were killed, the army said yesterday.
"The central mistake, which came out in army investigations afterward, was that the margins of safety [allowed by Israeli gunners] were inaccurate, because the exact location of the camp was onto the side, with respect to what we had on our maps," said deputy army chief Matan Vilnai.