LONDON–It would be fair to assume that while in China President Bill Clinton didn’t give much thought to Israel and the Palestinians. Even before he left Washington his whole body language seemed to suggest, “What more can I do? They’ve really got to work it out between them.”

The steam has gone out of American diplomacy. Israel’s prime minister, the sand-blaster, Benjamin Netanyahu, has won the battle of attrition but lost the war for peace.

In retrospect, it appears that the Clinton Administration saw this coming–only six weeks ago Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publically lectured Netanyahu saying, in so many words, that nothing had happened in the two years since he became prime minister and underlined the barb with praise for the cooperative attitude of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. The Clinton Administration feel they’ve lent their weight to what was essentially a pro-Netanyahu compromise on the next stage of Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and all Netanyahu did was bargain, equivocate, argue for the fine print of minuscule percentages that bore no relation to previous Israeli commitments and then having a deal in his grasp stalled.

The American huffing, puffing and public scolding did not budge Netanyahu. He played with Washington’s compromise like a cat with a half dead mouse, turning it over, letting it run a little, then when it was exhausted to the point of expiration, pushing it to one side with a disdainful last push of the paw.

Netanyahu is the master politician–of the short term variety, whose horizon has no historical dimension. Lost on him is the argument that granting Palestinians freedom and political independence is not a matter of Israeli altruism but an essential precondition for Israel’s security.

At the time of the Oslo Accord of September 1993, when the since assassinated prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, made the historic decision to seek a permanent peace with Palestine, he kept to himself how much of the occupied West Bank he was prepared to give up because he feared it was too low to be palatable to the Palestinians. In fact it was a great deal–certainly compared with Netanyahu’s paltry offers–a robust 50%. Yet now we have had the strange spectacle of Yasser Arafat, persuaded by those who should know better in Washington, entering the ring with Netanyahu to argue percentage points around the 40% mark while apparently consigning all previous Palestinian negociating demands, even the reasonable ones, to the bin.

Where does this leave Washington? Partly in a state of obvious intellectual exhaustion. Take the Washington Post. Only a year ago its chief editorial writer, Stephen Rosenfeld, Jewish himself, could criticise Netanyahu’s proposals for only offering the Palestinians “a small dependent, mishapen territory, carved up by Israeli roads and vulnerable to Israeli intervention the first time a kid threw a stone”. By May this year the Washington Post was reduced to wearily observing that U.S. tactics “makes him (Mr Netanyahu) rather than anyone on the Clinton team the arbiter of American policy”.

Netanyahu has seemingly ground everyone down. Fortunately, having accomplished what two years ago would have seemed impossible, totally shifting the goal posts in his favour, he now refuses to play. Whether this be divine intervention, or just the hubris of a politician who gives all for tactics but is totally bereft of the ability to score, must be up for question.

Stalemate, nevertheless, is the most sensible outcome. It gives everyone on both sides breathing room to re-assess the leadership question. Arafat’s regime is already alienated from the Palestinian public by his authoritarian style that relies on his security forces to impose his will, bipassing the Legislative Council, and by the massive corruption that accompanies this unbridled power.

It should surprise nobody that he faces a growing challenge for power from Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Hamas, the organisation which has had no compunction about using suicide bombers or any other means to advance its cause. Nor that this challenge seems to be being backed by the Arab states who one after another played host to the Sheikh on his recent tour of capitals, replenishing his war chest and bolstering his prestige.

Until now Hamas has been a spoiler rather than a challenger. But this can change as disenchantment with Arafat grows. Whether it be Arafat or Yassin or, even better, someone elected by the legislature, such as Haydar ‘Abd al-Shafi who resigned a year ago from the Palestinian Executive Authority to protest Arafat’s corruption, the wise course for the Palestinians is to wait for new Israeli elections–which President Ezer Weisman has just suggested should be called early.

Netanyahu has nothing to offer. That is clear now. Palestinians should hold out for at least what Rabin was prepared to concede and trust that the voters who returned Netanyahu to office by a mere 29,500 votes will have the good sense to heed the views of the opposition Labour Party’s Ehud Barak who, somewhat belatedly, has returned to the well trodden ways of his predecessor. In an interview last month he emphasized the uniqueness of the window of opportunity for peace, following the end of the Cold War and the Gulf war. It will, said Mr Barak, be closed when “some Arab nation will have nuclear devices and the means to launch them or maybe through a new wave of fundamentalist vitality among Moslem nation states”.

If Mr Clinton is being quiet on Israel/Palestine, is it because he too realizes that Netanyahu cannot bring peace?