A senior Israeli official said talks Saturday between US President Bill Clinton and top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will determine if a new summit can be held.
Danny Yatom, security advisor to caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said the White House meeting will determine whether there is reason to continue with peace talks, which began on Tuesday.
"We will see if it is possible to fill the gaps, which are still wide, and if the changes achieved lend themselves to holding a summit, but I am not sure that this will be the case," Yatom said on Israeli public radio.
"It is necessary for the violence to end and to foresee, with the help of the Americans, the application of the resolutions of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit" on a ceasefire.
"When we arrive at the crucial stage in the talks, there will be no agreement unless it is a comprehensive one, with Israel's interests preserved," he said.
Yatom said there will be no solution unless it incorporates agreement on a contested holy site in currently occupied east Jerusalem, including the future of that part of the city, as well as on the future of Palestinian refugees and on final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
"This is perhaps the last time that a compromise is offered. If the negotiations fail, the consequences could be grave, but I am optimistic," he added.
Commenting on the question of eventual sovereignty over east Jerusalem's contested Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, Yatom said: "That is a serious problem because of its symbolic components. It is not only a question of managing the site, but also of responding to sensitivities, and there are gaps on this subject that need to be filled at the negotiating table. The outcome must be acceptable to both sides."
The fate of Temple Mount, sacred to both Jews and Muslims, has been one of the key sticking points in peace talks, and disagreement over the issue contributed significantly to the collapse of the Camp David peace summit in July.
As to territory, Yatom said any deal must allow Israel to link itself geographically to those settlements in the West Bank in which 80 percent of Jewish settlers live.
Finally, he said "Israel will refuse to take moral or legal responsibility for the (Palestinian) refugees" who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel when the Jewish state was declared in 1948.
Yatom said Israel "cannot recognize a universal right of return for the (estimated 3.7 million) Palestinian refugees, but has offered to a small number to be able to return on humanitarian grounds, as well as its aid in the context of an internationally financed fund to permit the rehabilitation of the refugees." -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
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