MIDDLE EAST: For a so-called virtual peace deal, the Geneva Accord was causing a considerable amount of tangible interest in Israel and across the Arab world yesterday and an even more considerable degree of real Israeli and Palestinian bitterness and protest.
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and refugee camps in Lebanon demonstrated against the accord, which appears to represent a readiness to give up on the demand for a "right of return" to Israel for millions of Palestinian refugees.
The right-wing Israeli government, rejecting the accord as a recipe for national suicide, was joined by many from the centre-left in denouncing the concessions offered by the Israeli negotiators, including relinquishing full sovereignty on the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority.
A day after hundreds of angry Palestinian protesters attempted to prevent some Palestinian signatories from leaving Gaza en route to yesterday's formal launch ceremony, a smaller, non-violent but similarly unhappy group of right-wing Israeli demonstrators bade farewell to some of the Israeli signatories at Ben-Gurion Airport by denouncing them as "traitors" and brandishing placards advising them: "Don't come back."
Across the West Bank and Gaza, a series of anti-Geneva protests were held, with Israeli flags burned, coffins representing the accord paraded and burned in Ramallah and Gaza, and the Palestinian protagonists of the accord denounced as "traitors" and "collaborators".
Some of the angriest demonstrations took place in Lebanon, where Palestinian refugees recognise that the terms of the accord, if implemented, might forever close off the opportunity for their return to ancestral homes in today's Israel.
The Hebrew newspaper Ha'aretz carried a survey yesterday showing 31 per cent of Israel in favour of the accords and 38 per cent against; a second Israeli poll showed 27 per cent support to 43 per cent against.
A Palestinian survey appeared to indicate far wider backing, with 56 per cent of Palestinians expressing support and 39 per cent against. A second Palestinian polling group however also released a survey yesterday, which found that only 26 per cent of Palestinians believed peace with Israel was possible and that 62 per cent supported suicide bombings in Israel.
Behind the scenes, Israeli government officials are trying to persuade international political leaders not to promote the Geneva understandings. The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, is set to meet the key Geneva protagonists, a prime target.
Mr Ra'anan Gissin, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, castigated the terms as tantamount to national suicide and branded Geneva a "Swiss golden calf" for the Israeli left.
Mr Ehud Olmert, the Deputy Prime Minister, said the accord posed a "colossal danger" to Israel, adding scathingly: "Anyone from Israel who offers such spectacular concessions - takes apart Jerusalem, returns Israel to its 1967 borders and accepts the principle that we caused the Palestinian refugee problem - will get the support of a few minor actors and some politicians whose careers are over."
There was withering criticism even from the Israeli Labour Party, trailblazer of the Oslo accord. Its leader, Nobel peace laureate Mr Shimon Peres, has opposed the Geneva terms. The party's Knesset faction head, Mr Dalia Itzik, called the initiative "megalomaniacal" and "irresponsible."
While the PA President Yasser Arafat despatched his National Security Adviser, Mr Jibril Rajoub, to Geneva, sent a message of congratulation and offered lukewarm endorsement for the accord's signatories to travel, he and his prime minister, Mr Ahmed Korei, have made clear that they are not adopting the terms - in particular the notion of relinquishing the demand for the "right of return".