THE US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, arrived in Israel yesterday seeking specific reassurances that the new government intends to continue the peace process with the Palestinians. He got none.
In talks with the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and other senior ministers, the Secretary of State sought an explicit promise that the government would honour the outgoing Peres administration's pledge to with draw Israeli troops from most of Hebron, the last West Bank city still under Israeli control.
No such promise was forthcoming.
A veteran of two dozen diplomatic missions to the Middle East, Mr Christopher is far too experienced to have given public vent to any misgivings about the new government's line.
But going through the diplomatic niceties at a joint press conference with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem yesterday afternoon, he did insert one subtle cautionary note.
"Real peace without security is not possible," he acknowledged, echoing the central slogan of Mr Netanyahu's Likud led administration. But, he added pointedly, "real security without peace is also not possible.
Mr Christopher, who today is to hold talks with Mr Arafat and with President Mubarak of Egypt, was yesterday preparing the ground for Mr Netanyahu's first prime ministerial meeting with President Clinton, in Washington ready next month.
But the Israeli Prime Minister, a narrow victor over Mr Shimon Peres in last month's general elections, made it clear that on key policy issues he was still formulating his positions.
On the subject of Hebron, he said he was "still studying" the complex "historical and security aspects". On the subject of talks with Mr Arafat the peace partner with whom his government has had no direct contact would say only that the lines communication to the Palestinian Authority would soon be broadened.
Mr Netanyahu has previously asserted that he will keep the peace process moving forward, but he gave little indication off this yesterday. He made no mention of the Oslo accords which frame peace with the Palestinians.
Instead he harked back to the 1991 Madrid peace conference, to which a reluctant, Likud-led Israel sat down in the same room for the first time with all its regional neighbours. The Madrid framework had been an effective framework for negotiations, he said, and his government wanted to resume negotiations with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians without preconditions.
Such statements, scoffed the former Labour foreign minister, Mr Ehud Barak, were absurd and out of date. The Madrid conference was "history."
Talk of preconditions was irrelevant since the stands of the sides were well known, and the need now was for bridging remaining gaps, Mr Barak said.
Mr Netanyahu, who ducked most questions at the press conference, also refused to rule out the possibility of expanding or establishing Jewish settlements, the issue that so strained relations between the last Likud government and the Bush administration.