The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, remained defiant during the latest round of consultations on Middle East peace yesterday, telling President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt that Palestinian, not Israeli, flexibility was needed to break the current impasse. The two men met for over an hour in Cairo and then left without holding their usual joint press conference, causing speculation among the large group of assembled journalists that the talks were less than cordial. An Israeli official later described them as "businesslike".
During the meeting, Mr Mubarak advised Mr Netanyahu to "respond positively to the US initiative, which represents the minimum of what is necessary to revive the peace process", according to a statement by the state-owned Middle East News Agency.
The Israeli leader, however, blamed the Palestinians for the deadlock. "If only Israel is demanded to soften its position and not the Palestinian side, there will be nothing," was an Israeli official's summary of Mr Netanyahu's views.
The US wants Israel to withdraw from 13 per cent of the land it occupies in the West Bank, while Israel maintains that withdrawing from more than nine per cent would threaten its security.
Mr Netanyahu's insistence on shifting the focus to the Palestinians is unlikely to endear him to Mr Mubarak, who has described the Israeli leader as untrustworthy and, like most Arab leaders, blames him for the current deadlock in the peace process.
Tuesday's meeting, which was followed by discussions between Mr Mubarak and the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Mr Martin Indyk, took place in the run-up to talks between the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, planned for next week in London.
US and Arab officials are concerned that after a year of deadlock, failure to reach some sort of agreement there could have serious consequences in the region.
"Everyone agrees that the London meeting is potentially a critical chapter in the peace process which either opens up the hope for continuation or closes an important chapter of history," Mr Henry Seigman, a member of the US Private Council on Foreign Relations, told reporters after his own meeting with Mr Mubarak yesterday.
The tense pre-London situation was not helped by Mr Netanyahu's threats on Monday to take "unilateral action" - widely interpreted as annexing parts of the West Bank - if the Palestinians declared a state.
"We cannot accept and mustn't accept the formation of a new Iraq or a new Iran next to our doorstep," he told journalists in Jerusalem.
This was in response to Mr Arafat's reiteration last weekend of his intention to declare a Palestinian state if there is no settlement by May 4th, 1999 - the date by which a final settlement was envisaged by the authors of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
For Mr Netanyahu, "the word state involves. . . unlimited powers". What he would like to see instead, according to his vaguely-worded vision of the future, is that the Palestinians should be given "all the powers to run their lives and none of the powers that could threaten the life of the Jewish state".