The US peace envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, achieved some moderate success yesterday, managing to bring together Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs in an attempt to re-establish security co-operation between the two sides. But the meetings were quickly dismissed by Israeli officials as little more than window-dressing.
Israeli, Palestinian and US security operatives met last night to discuss deepening security interaction, following a similar three-way meeting late on Sunday night between the head of Israel's General Security Services, Mr Ami Ayalon, Palestinian intelligence chief Mr Amin el-Hindi and CIA operatives.
The meetings, said Mr Ross, after emerging yesterday from talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, "are a step in the right direction" to re-establishing the security co-operation which could then "pave the way to putting the process back on track and addressing the political side".
But Israeli officials yesterday played down the importance of yesterday's developments, saying there had been several three-way meetings in the past but they had all produced few concrete results.
A sceptical Israeli Cabinet Secretary, Mr Danny Naveh, said the meetings had yet to elicit any "change on the ground". Mr Naveh said Israel was demanding that Mr Yasser Arafat cease what he said was the Palestinian leader's "revolving door" policy whereby he arrested terrorists and immediately released them.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, warned yesterday that the government would not ease its closure of the West Bank and Gaza - imposed after a July 30th twin suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem - until the Palestinians proved they were making a concerted effort to combat terror. Mr Ross, who met Mr Arafat for a third time last night, is on the second day of a shuttle mission aimed at laying the groundwork prior to a visit later this month by the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, who is expected to present a new US-backed peace initiative.
Yesterday also, thousands of Palestinians, including supporters of the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, demonstrated against Israeli policies in Ramallah and Gaza.
As youths burned the Israeli flag in Ramallah, anti-Israel banners were held aloft. "We salute and are proud of the martyrs," read one, referring to the Jerusalem blasts.
Meanwhile, Mr Arafat was yesterday promised assistance on the anti-terror front by the EU special Middle East envoy, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos. After meeting the Palestinian leader, Mr Moratinos announced that a Swedish counter-terror expert, Mr Nils Erikson, would be arriving as part of a European move "to support the American effort".
Mr Erikson, who was to arrive last night, will train the Palestinian security forces in interrogation techniques as well as assist in the establishment of an investigation bureau with forensic capabilities.
Peter Hirschberg is a senior writer at the Jerusalem Report