Concerned that the political demise of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, is closer now than ever, Egypt yesterday overcame its antipathy to Israel's current government and dispatched its Foreign Minister, Mr Ahmed Maher, to plead Mr Arafat's case, with no apparent success, in talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt withdrew his ambassador from Tel Aviv earlier this year in protest at Israel's use of military force in the intifada conflict, and had steered clear of any high-level contact with Israel since Mr Sharon was elected to the premiership in February.
That Mr Maher was yesterday instructed to meet the unloved Israeli prime minister, and in Jerusalem at that, emphasized how perilous Egypt now considers Mr Arafat's position. It also shows how aware Mr Mubarak is of the implications for his own regime and regional stability of what must now be regarded as a joint, uncompromising Israeli-American stance on Mr Arafat - either he destroys the "military infrastructure" of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or his regime will be toppled.
Mr Maher emerged from his session with Mr Sharon to acknowledge that while "I cannot say we see eye-to-eye, we agree on the goal - which is to ensure a Palestinian state, living beside an Israeli state, in security and co-operation." The critical problem with this goal, as it relates to the future of the Palestinian Authority, however, is that Mr Sharon doubts that Mr Arafat has the slightest concern for a secure state of Israel. And the Israeli prime minister appears to have persuaded the Bush administration of his misgivings.
More sceptical than ever about Mr Arafat's oft-repeated commitment to fight terrorism and seek a permanent peace accord via negotiation and compromise, the US is now said to be maintaining hour-by-hour monitoring of Mr Arafat's purported new effort - in the wake of the weekend's Hamas suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa - to thwart further such attacks and dismantle all groups who target Israeli civilians.
And while Mr Arafat is understood to have ordered the Tanzim militia, affiliated with his Fatah faction of the PLO, to honour an intifada ceasefire, the Americans are apparently unconvinced that a genuine crackdown on the Islamists is under way. Yesterday's clashes in Gaza between Hamas supporters and Palestinian Authority policemen notwithstanding, Mr Arafat was last night reported to have arrested only a quarter of the 30-plus "most dangerous" militants on the latest list conveyed to him from Israel.
And Israeli officials claimed that some of those being held have already been assured by the authority that they will be quietly set free when American attention is drawn elsewhere.
The Israeli army on Monday began a military onslaught that appeared designed to bring about the rapid demise of Mr Arafat's regime. But bad weather and a personal plea by Mr Arafat to Mr Peres on Wednesday brought a temporary reprieve.
The discovery by Palestinian security officials of a Hamas bomb-making factory in Nablus yesterday was acknowledged by the Deputy Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Dahlia Rabin-Pelossof, as "perhaps a first symptom" that the pressure on Mr Arafat was starting to yield concrete results. But Mr Sharon was caustic, asserting that, "so far we haven't seen any change in Arafat". In talks with the American envoy here, Mr Anthony Zinni, Mr Sharon has been demanding the outlawing of the militant groups and the arrests of their leaders, the confiscation of illegal weaponry, ongoing efforts to prevent attacks on Israeli targets, and an end to what he has described as incitement against Israel in the Palestinian media.
Only if those terms were met, he has indicated, would his government withdraw its formal designation of the Palestinian Authority as "an entity that supports terrorism." Mr Zinni, who has also been holding talks with Mr Arafat, says the US will maintain its pressure on the Palestinian leader until it is convinced he is meeting his commitments to fight terrorism.
Aides to Mr Arafat who have been frantically telephoning longtime colleagues in the US administration, urging them to intervene to "save the Palestinian Authority", have been told there will be salvation from Washington, and no support for Mr Arafat, until he has convincingly separated himself from the fundamentalists.
Israeli troops killed a Tanzim member who it said was firing mortar shells at a settlement in the Gaza Strip yesterday afternoon. A second man was captured.