Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, will be going to Washington next week. But the signs are multiplying that he will be travelling only to honour a long-standing commitment to address the annual meeting of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby group, rather than to attend the peace-reviving summit that President Clinton is hoping to host at the White House on Monday with the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Dennis Ross, the fast-greying peace envoy hurriedly despatched to Jerusalem yesterday to try and cajole Mr Netanyahu into withdrawing from another 13 per cent of the West Bank - and, with that, resuscitating the peace process - found the prime minister stubbornly resistant.
Mr Netanyahu told Mr Ross he was furious to hear Mrs Hillary Clinton announcing on Wednesday that it was "in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state".
He fumed, too, that the US ultimatum regarding a 13 per cent pull-out was an act of betrayal, because the Clinton Administration had previously pledged not to impose specific territorial demands, but rather to let Israel decide how much occupied land it was prepared to relinquish, and over what period.
Mr Netanyahu proposed all manner of "refinements" to Mr Ross, suggesting new definitions for the kind of "control" Israel might be prepared to give up over various areas of the West Bank.
But Mr Ross came with no mandate for compromise. As the White House spokesman has now reiterated, the US proposals will not be "watered down". Israel can fulfil the terms - and reap the benefits of an accelerated, US-backed effort to complete the peace process via a permanent accord negotiated over the next year - or it can reject them. There is no middle ground.
"Opportunities do not last forever," President Clinton observed yesterday. "They must be seized. I hope this one will be."
Listening to Mr Netanyahu's aides yesterday, however, the overwhelming impression is that the prime minister is prepared to let this opportunity slip away, to pass up next Monday's meeting with Mr Arafat and President Clinton, and hang the consequences.
One of Mr Netanyahu's closest advisers, the cabinet secretary, Mr Danny Naveh, said flatly that the demand for a 13 per cent pull-out was "not acceptable to the government of Israel".
Mr Naveh is a cautious speaker and rarely strays beyond the parameters of his master's thinking. Incredibly, Mr Naveh also said that there were no plans to discuss the US proposals at tomorrow's cabinet meeting.
If Mr Netanyahu is bent on rejecting the US ultimatum, he will be reasoning that his cabinet would not approve a 13 per cent pull-out - the influential Mr Ariel Sharon has been leading a chorus of ministerial opposition - and that the Clinton Administration is too weakened by presidential scandal to enter into a confrontation with him.
Mr Netanyahu's hardline positions have strong support in Congress, and engender no little sympathy in Mr Al Gore, who needs Jewish financial support to bolster his presidential aspirations.
A handful of Israeli government moderates are urging Mr Netanyahu to embrace the US proposals and suggesting that, were his coalition to collapse as a result, he could safely bet on sweeping to victory in new elections as the man of the Israeli mainstream, a firm negotiator but one ultimately prepared to pay a reasonable price in land for a sustainable peace deal.
Despite a strong showing in the latest opinion polls - which place him four to 14 per cent ahead of his Labour party rival, Mr Ehud Barak - not to mention the near-certainty of escalating violence as the last faint peace hopes die away, Mr Netanyahu seems disinclined to take the gamble.
Mrs Clinton's remarks supporting a Palestine state had the White House scrambling yesterday to prevent the burgeoning controversy from pushing the Middle East talks over the brink.
"She was reflecting a personal view," the White House spokesman, Mr Michael McCurry, said after the First Lady observed that a Palestinian state would be in the "long-term interest" of the Middle East.
Mrs Clinton was speaking on Wednesday through a satellite link to students from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan at a "Seeds of Peace" meeting in Switzerland.
She used the word "Palestine" and was then challenged by an Israeli student, who said: "Right now, this country does not exist."
"I think that it will be in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state," Mrs Clinton replied.
"She responds in a human, personal way when people express frustration," Mr McCurry said. "At the same time, the president is very precise in the way in which he addresses issues that are fundamentally important to the Middle East peace process."
But yesterday the Palestinians welcomed the First Lady's remarks as a sign of US support and said her view should be made official.