An embarrassing moment took a heartwarming turn at the Dec. 28 meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his host, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, when the door opened and in walked a uniformed soldier. The soldier was Gantz’s son, who is performing his compulsory military service and was on leave at the family home where the unusual meeting took place. The Palestinian guests froze for a heartbeat, but it was Abbas himself, a man who has seen it all, who broke the ice. “I hope peace comes out of this house,” he was quoted in Israeli media as saying. 

The meeting will not produce peace. Not immediately at least. In any case, its goal was primarily to prevent war. It brought Abbas for his first official meeting inside Israeli territory since 2010 (except for partaking in the funeral ceremony for late President Shimon Peres). And not just any territory — a square kilometer fraught with symbolism and history. Gantz’s home lies in the town of Rosh Ha’ayin, adjacent to the Israeli-Arab town of Kafr Qasim, headquarters of the Shura Council, the supreme spiritual body of the Islamic movement in Israel and of its political party Ra’am, the first Arab party ever to join an Israeli governing coalition. 

The right-wing Israeli opposition, as expected, assailed Gantz for hosting Abbas, whom they consider a Holocaust denier and arch-terrorist. In fact, right-wing members of the politically diverse government were clearly not keen either on the intimate meeting. Abbas himself did not fare much better at home, especially with the Hamas movement that accused him of kowtowing to the former chief of the Israeli army.

Still, the two leaders’ reasons for meeting were weightier than political considerations. The highly sensitive meeting was coordinated by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) Dec. 22. Sullivan promised Abbas that he would not be wasting his time by meeting Gantz, who was preparing a package of tangible incentives that would benefit residents of the PA so desperate for a relaxation of Israeli strictures and some good news. Abbas decided to go.