With peace in the Middle East becoming increasingly fragile the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Clinton to try and salvage what remains of the 1993 Oslo Agreement. Following a Margaret Warner backgrounder, Jim Lehrer talks to three journalists who cover the Middle East peace process.

JIM LEHRER: The Middle East is first tonight. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met today in Washington with President Clinton in an effort to stem the violence in the crisis with the Palestinians. Our coverage begins with this report by Margaret Warner has.

MARGARET WARNER: The last two weeks have seen an upsurge of conflict tn the Middle East. Daily confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians have raised fears that the Middle East process is in jeopardy. Both sides blame each other for the increased tensions. One flash point was the Israeli government's ground-breaking for a 3,000 unit Jewish housing project in primarily in East Jerusalem. The project is in a disputed region of the city that the Israelis call Har Homa and the Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghenaim. Palestinians have kept up a daily vigil of protests at the site. And beyond Har Homa, in the West Bank there have been demonstrations and clashes between Palestinian and Israeli forces. Israeli police have used rubber bullets and tear gas to control the protesters. Another flash point was the March 21st suicide bombing of a crowded Tel Aviv cafe. The bomber killed himself and three Israelis and wounded dozens of others. It was the kind of attack not seen in Israel for nearly a year. The Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility. The bombing led Prime Minister Netanyahu to accuse Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of giving tacit approval to the resumption of terrorism by Hamas and others.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Every time there's an impasse or the Palestinians have a grievance against us, they send terrorists--in this case they were sent with a green light from the Palestinian Authority--on that we have absolute information--and they blow up our people. That is not a peace process.

MARGARET WARNER: Arafat denied condoning any such attacks and continued to condemn the new Jewish settlements.

YASSER ARAFAT: --collective punishment which is completely against the peace process and against the agreements which we have signed and which have been agreed upon.

MARGARET WARNER: On April 1st, in a gesture of solidarity, the Arab League voted to freeze all efforts to improve diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. Arab League members also threatened to revive the Arab economic boycott against Israel. As the situation worsened, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross was dispatched to meet with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, but he returned to Washington without any clear indication of progress. Last week, Jordan's King Hussein came to the United States to call on the Clinton administration to take a more active role in reviving the peace process. In the region, the violence continued, with two failed suicide bombings by terrorists near Jewish settlements last week. In the past week, four Palestinians have died, and more than a dozen Israelis have been wounded. The deteriorating situation prompted Prime Minister Netanyahu to hurriedly arrange meetings in Washington with President Clinton. Yesterday, on his way, Netanyahu stopped to visit King Hussein at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where the King had just undergone prostate surgery. Then, this morning, before meeting with President Clinton, Netanyahu spoke to a pro-Israel American group and once again defended Israel's right to build housing in East Jerusalem.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: I know there are attempts to divide the city. It is done sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely, sometimes by challenging our rights to build apartments, for God's sake, in our city--apartments. But I want to assure you today we will never allow Jerusalem to be re-divided again. Never! Never.

MARGARET WARNER: In a photo session before today's talks, President Clinton said something had to be done to jumpstart the peace process.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think the important thing, if I might, is to get the process going again and have some idea in the minds of all of us who are part of it about, you know, where we're going, an agreed-upon destination, and then to re-establish the confidence necessary for the parties to go forward. I think it's premature for us to commit to that until we can get this thing back on track again.

MARGARET WARNER: Netanyahu gave his views after his meetings with the President and Secretary of State Albright, when he held a press conference at his hotel.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Both of us--Israel and the United States--see eye to eye on the need for effectively combating terrorism in order to ensure that the peace process goes forward and goes forward successfully. And secondly, we discussed a number of ideas to move the peace process back on track, assuming that the battle for terrorism is engaged effectively. These are preliminary discussions. Nothing formal, nothing definitive was said, and I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to continue these exchange of views over the coming days and weeks. I think the United States has some ideas of its own, and I prefer to let them--let the United States and let President Clinton explore these various possibilities with us and the Palestinians and decide at the appropriate time if he wants to make concrete proposals to the parties and consider them, so I--I think I've raised an idea. It's one of the ideas. There may be other ideas. There may be differences in viewpoint or additions. I think it's too early to talk about a definitive proposal.