It is too early yet to tell whether the welcome withdrawal by Israeli troops from their siege of President Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah represents a significant shift in policy by the Israeli government. Will the pointless ritual dance of invasion and withdrawal just resume again as soon as the next desperate Palestinian blows up himself and some Israelis?
Israel's foreign minister, Mr Shimon Peres, certainly appears to think that nothing much has changed in Israeli thinking, and is again hinting at resignation from the Government. "For the past 18 months, the security situation has been deteriorating. There is no government and no goal," he told the cabinet in a broadside aimed at prime minister, Mr Ariel Sharon.
Mr Arafat himself emerged from the rubble to denounce the withdrawal as purely "cosmetic" while one of his guards is reported as having made the bizarre claim, presumably for a different audience, that: "We defeated the Israelis".
The capacity for self-delusion of protagonists on both sides appears to know no bounds.
And yet there are reports that the withdrawal may have been prompted by a more-than-ritual weekend appeal from President Bush. The Washington Post claimed on Saturday that the Administration's latest message to Mr Sharon has been couched in somewhat new terms. The view is now increasingly being taken in Washington, the paper said, that Israel's repeated defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning its actions is directly affecting the US's diplomatic efforts to build a coalition against Iraq.
It would seem to be obvious. It's been clear to most commentators outside the US for some time that Israel's unrestrained behaviour, and the powder keg of Palestine, represent the most serious obstacles to US intervention in Iraq. Can it really sustain a serious military campaign in Iraq if there is a war going on in the Occupied Territories?
If the penny has dropped in Washington too, perhaps we might begin to see a more robust long-term willingness to take on the Sharon Government over its counter-productive confrontational policies.
Could it be that Israel's ability, courtesy of the most effective political lobby in the US, to count on the virtually unquestioning backing of the Administtration and Congress may be challenged by a new, overarching, strategic imperative - Iraq?
It's an ill wind, they say, that blows no good.