The desire to foster a warmer, more respectful atmosphere was evident even before the talks began. Israel's new Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, arrived early at the Erez border crossing yesterday, so as to be on hand to personally welcome Mr Yasser Arafat when the Palestinian leader pulled up in his Mercedes. The two men posed easily together for the photographers, smiled, waved hands.
And when they emerged from two hours of talks, promising "to put an end to the cycle of violence and confrontation" (Mr Arafat) and "embark on a new road of trust" (Mr Barak), the mutual respect was even more evident. Since Mr Arafat's microphone was malfunctioning at their joint press conference, Mr Barak invited him over to his podium - to much merriment.
After the questions were over, they spoke briefly, purposefully, to each other. Then they escorted each other outside, and shook hands again and again until the photographers were satisfied.
As officials on both sides are stressing, deeds, not compliments or smiling handshakes, are needed to lift Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations out of three years of deadlock.
But yesterday, at their critical first face-to-face meeting since Mr Barak took over as prime minister last week, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders looked like two men on a shared course.
There was a little substance, too: a pledge from Mr Barak to honour the Wye River peace deal, signed last October by Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, but frozen soon after. "We are committed to the Wye agreement. We will implement it," said Mr Barak.
A first hand-over of West Bank land to Mr Arafat, under the Wye deal, is now anticipated within a few weeks. Also in the offing are Palestinian prisoner releases. Mr Arafat called, too, for the opening of a seaport in Gaza and of promised "safe-passage" routes across Israel from Gaza to the West Bank.
Consciously turning back the clock to the relationship that prevailed in the 1992-96 years of the last Labour-led Israeli government, the two men stressed their joint commitment to fighting extremism, and their confidence that they would surmount all the obstacles to a just and lasting peace.
One prime obstacle, in the years that Mr Arafat was negotiating with Mr Barak's late mentor, Yitzhak Rabin, were Islamic extremist suicide bombings. Mr Arafat said he had "zero tolerance to violence and terror."
A few hours earlier, in Gaza city a short drive to the south, the Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin had warned that his movement would not abandon its "strategy of resistance . . . When you live under occupation," the sheikh explained, "no one should expect you to surrender."
Mr Barak's talks with Mr Arafat marked the more convivial of the day's two major meetings for the prime minister. Earlier he had convened his first proper cabinet meeting - and encountered his first demonstration. More than 100 women rallied outside his office to protest against the unequal representation of women in his cabinet: one, Environment Minister Dalia Itzik, among 17 men.
Poor Ms Itzik was sent out to appease the sceptical crowd with prime ministerial assurances that two more women would be added later.