Looking like long lost friends freshly reunited, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, clasped hands and beamed yesterday, while President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, their proud host at the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, smiled happily between them.
Watching the trio as they posed for the cameras after their summit talks, and listening to Mr Mubarak extolling "the good relations between the leaders", one might have been forgiven for thinking that, more than six years after Mr Barak's mentor, the late Yitzhak Rabin, embarked on the bumpy road to peace with Mr Arafat, the finishing obstacles had now been cleared.
In truth, however, the differences between the two sides have hardly narrowed in those long years. It was no accident that, shortly before yesterday's photo opportunity in Egypt, microphones that had been set up for Mr Barak and Mr Arafat were removed, and Mr Mubarak was the only one allowed to do the talking.
Far from marking the culmination of a reconciliation process, the carefully choreographed ceremony merely reflected the start of yet another effort at fence-mending, conceived because the consequences of failure are again becoming apparent.
The Israelis fear Mr Arafat is ready to give Hamas a tacit "green light" for a campaign of suicide bombings, and to move towards a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians fear Israel is content to leave them with their current control of just 40 per cent of the occupied West Bank, and turn its attention instead to peacemaking with Syria.
And so, mutually deterred, with the US and Egyptians chivvying them along, they have plunged back into negotiations. Intensive talks are to begin in the US on March 20th.
"Some new things will be announced soon," Mr Mubarak predicted - referring to an imminent Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners, and to an Israeli handover of another 6.1 per cent of the West Bank. After three sets of talks in three days, the sides are also now recommitted to reaching the outline of a peace treaty by May. This deadline could well be feasible, but only because no one can say how detailed an outline it need be. If it merely sets out the issues still to be resolved, it could be signed tomorrow. If, however, it is designed to offer a mechanism for resolving those disputed issues, a couple of months will not be long enough.
Reuters adds:
Israeli bulldozers demolished roads leading to the West Bank village of Qatannah yesterday in its first step towards knocking down six Palestinian homes at the edge of Jerusalem, according to Rabbi Arik Ascherman, a member of the committee against house demolitions.