It is going to be a very interesting meeting. I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry sit face to face and finally start to talk, after all the barbs and criticism that they’ve flung at one another and all the blows below the belt that they’ve exchanged over the agreement with Iran.

Though the Iranian episode is finished for now and the agreement signed is an irrefutable fact, there can be no doubt that it will be at the center of the talks. But Kerry didn’t come to Israel last night, Dec. 4, to listen to Netanyahu’s gripes. The US secretary of state came to save the failed negotiations with the Palestinians before they blow up in everybody’s faces. This is the last call before the participants get up and go their own ways. If Kerry fails to glue the negotiators to their seats, whether through threats, promises, or some combination of the two, there is no way anyone will be seeing white smoke coming out of the negotiating chambers.

What does Kerry have to offer? What tricks can he pull out of his sleeve this time? If the carrot and stick routine he used last time forced chief Palestinian and Israeli negotiators Saeb Erekat and Tzipi Livni to the negotiating table, even if they were dragged there unwillingly, the outline of “Yitzhar [Settlement] for Bushehr [Iranian nuclear reactor site],” assuming there really was such one, is no longer relevant. The Israeli side won’t be buying any more promises about Iran’s nuclear program.

Given all that, it is kind of surprising that the salvation might yet come from Europe. The EU, which has been watching events unfold from a distance with considerable concern, is more capable now of having an impact on the progress of negotiations between the two sides. Outside the negotiators’ inner sanctum, the name of Catherine Ashton, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security, is more intimidating and terrifying than that of Kerry or even the name of US President Barack Obama.