THE MIDDLE EAST: Their talks lasted for more than four hours; their joint press conference was over in just a few minutes. They made the briefest of statements, they took just one question each from reporters, and then they were gone.
But even that most fleeting of joint appearances by the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, could not conceal the unbridged gap between Israel and its main strategic ally over the conduct of what both call "the war against terrorism".
Amid escalating anti-Israel protests in the Arab world, Mr Powell is engaged in what has now become an unmistakable effort to prevent the 18-month intifada conflict between Israel and the Palestinians exploding into full-scale regional war. To that end, he urged Mr Sharon and his government to swiftly complete its military offensive in the West Bank, and get back into a negotiating process with the battered leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
The US welcomed "the efforts you are making as part of the campaign against terrorism," he said carefully. But to "reach the kind of solution" needed to fully resolve the conflict, he went on, "the parties must talk, the parties must begin negotiations." Mr Sharon, however, offered only the hope that he would be able to order a withdrawal "soon", declaring that there could be "no peace with terrorists", and stating that "Israel is the only democracy in the world where every single school and every single kindergarten has to be guarded against terrorist attack."
Pressed as to whether any timetable for a withdrawal had been agreed, Mr Powell acknowledged that it had not.
This open disagreement reflects the differing agendas between the Bush administration and Mr Sharon's coalition. Washington has made Iraq its priority in the "anti-terror" campaign, and wants a passive Middle East in which to go to war against President Saddam Hussein. President Bush may have said on April 4th that Mr Yasser Arafat had "betrayed" his people, but he and Mr Powell consider that all paths to a calming of the Palestinian streets, and thus of the region, still lead to Mr Arafat's tank-guarded Ramallah office building.
But while Mr Sharon also wants to see the back of Mr Saddam, he wants to see the back of Mr Arafat too, regarding him as an unreformed terrorist. Crucially, he believes that Mr Powell's effort to secure a genuine commitment from Mr Arafat to fighting terrorism is naïve, futile and counterproductive.
Mr Powell argues that the military offensive is creating the climate for many more bombers; Mr Sharon reasons that, if so, he can hardly call off the army and make it easier for them to strike.
Israeli public support for the incursions is sky high - 75 per cent in favour; 20 per cent against, according to a poll in the Ma'ariv daily. Sixty-two per cent want Mr Arafat deported. At the same time, 52 per cent in the same poll said they backed the Saudi peace initiative - which calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 war. The contradiction apparently reflects an Israeli sense that while, in the short term, there is no alternative to force to try and prevent the bombings, in the long-term, with Arab partners other than Mr Arafat committed to normalise ties, security can best be attained at the negotiating table.
The survey was taken as reports were starting to emerge from Jenin refugee camp of the large numbers of Palestinian fatalities in a week of fighting there between Israeli soldiers and gunmen from Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israeli military officials were quoted yesterday as putting the death toll anywhere between 100 and 250, almost all of them gunmen. Twenty-three soldiers were killed in the camp.