Israeli and Palestinian leaders are setting off for Washington this week, for meetings with President Clinton in the White House which are seen as crucial to efforts to get the long-stalled Middle East peace process moving again.

BBC analyst Roger Hardy

But after so many months of mistrust and recrimination, Mr Clinton seems to face an uphill task. Middle East analyst, Roger Hardy looks at the prospects for peace.

The very fact that Bill Clinton is intervening in the peace process is a sign of how bad things are. When Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke down in March last year, the task of fixing them was initially left to the US special envoy, Dennis Ross. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - still new in the job - didn't go to the region till September. But despite her reputation for energy and bluntness, she too was unable to break the deadlock. Now, after almost a year of crisis, Mr Clinton is receiving two of the key players at the White House.

Leaders will meet Clinton separately

Yasser Arafat warns of a violent uprising if peace talks deteriorate further

The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, will see the president on Tuesday, followed by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat two days later. The fact that they're seeing Mr Clinton separately rather than together is a sign of the gulf of mistrust between them.

US officials have tried to strike a rather stern, schoolmasterly tone in the run-up to the meetings, to show they expect the two leaders to be serious and business-like.

Peace - are both sides serious?

On the face of it, the immediate issues are familiar ones that look amenable to compromise. The Americans want the Palestinians to give specific commitments on closer co-operation with Israel over security issues, especially the fight against terrorism. From the Israelis they want a specific -- and credible -- commitment on a further withdrawal from the West Bank.

The hope is that agreement on these issues would provide the basis for a renewal of serious negotiations -- preferably with an accelerated timetable for reaching a final peace settlement.

But the issues are far from being merely technical. The real problem is whether the two parties really intend to make peace or not. The Americans were taken aback when, last week, the Israeli cabinet produced a long list of conditions the Palestinians would have to fulfil before it would agree to a further pullback from the West Bank.

This seemed to add weight to the Arab charge that the present Israeli government is playing games, and isn't serious about peace. The New York Times -- a staunchly pro-Israeli newspaper -- said the new proposals showed a lack of trust, imagination and determination. It added that there seemed little chance that Mr Clinton's meetings this week would be able to rejuvenate the peace process.
 

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