Earlier this week, Israel's opposition leader, Mr Ariel Sharon, sent greetings for the Muslim festival of Eid el-Fitr to the office of the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat. Since Mr Sharon has hitherto branded Mr Arafat a "war criminal", and steadfastly refused to shake his hand, the message of goodwill - expressing the hope that the festive season would bring "a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians, so our two peoples can live in the region in peace, security and economic prosperity" - caught Mr Arafat's officials somewhat by surprise. But its dispatch underlined Mr Sharon's desire, as he bids to unseat the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, in elections on February 6th, to reinvent himself as a would-be peacemaker.
Yesterday, the Hebrew newspapers brought a reciprocal message of goodwill for Mr Sharon.
The latest opinion polls indicated that more and more Israelis are coming to view him not as the disgraced former defence minister of the 1982 Lebanon war, but as a pragmatist and as their clear preference for leader of the nation: One poll, in the top-selling Yediot Ahronot, placed him 13 per cent clear of Mr Barak; a second, in the Ma'ariv tabloid, put his lead at a whopping 21 per cent.
The surveys suggest that, in Israeli eyes, it is Mr Barak now, and not Mr Sharon, who cannot safely be entrusted with the governing of the nation. For while Mr Barak has been pinning his hopes of re-election on the achievement of a peace treaty with Mr Arafat in the few weeks before election day, the new surveys indicate that Israeli voters regard President Clinton's recently unveiled peace formula, deemed by Mr Barak to be a reasonable basis for that treaty, as unacceptable.
Fifty-six per cent of respondents said that, unlike Mr Barak and his ministers, they considered the Clinton formula, under which Israel would relinquish control of much of Jerusalem and some 95 per cent of the West Bank, to be unworkable. Only 38 per cent backed the plan. And, by a 20 per cent margin, they said they would still vote for Mr Sharon over Mr Barak even if a deal was reached, and the elections amounted to a referendum on it.
Though pleasant reading for Mr Sharon, the surveys portent a bleak new year for Mr Barak and Mr Clinton. The notion of a peace deal signing ceremony in the final days of the Clinton era is fading rapidly.
Mr Arafat, while said to be ready to meet Mr Barak, has not accepted the Clinton formula. And even were an unlikely treaty to be reached, it now appears, the Israeli electorate would reject it.
Recent opinion polls in the Palestinian media have also pointed to majority opposition to a peace treaty, and there are calls from some Palestinian legislators for the Palestinians, too, to be offered a referendum on peace.
These calls are unlikely to be heeded, but there can be no doubting the depth of Palestinian anger with Israel - fuelled by fighting, now into its fourth month, in which some 300 Palestinians and 40 Israelis have been killed.
After bombings in Gaza and Tel Aviv on Thursday in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, and a dozen civilians injured, Israel yesterday sealed off the West Bank and Gaza, and heavily restricted entry to Jerusalem for Muslims seeking to pray at the Temple Mount. The closure did not prevent further violence, however: A Palestinian policeman was killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza; there were clashes in Hebron and Ramallah, and Islamic extremists promised further attacks.
Perhaps the only crumb of comfort came with the release by Hamas of a 25-year-old Israeli, Mr Yitzhak Magrafta, who had been captured by the Islamist extremist group on Thursday in Hebron, where he was distributing to Palestinians humanitarian aid funded by donations he had himself solicited.