IT seemed like such an innocuous meeting two fairly senior politicians, one Israeli, one Palestinian, chatting amiably across a desk in an office in Tel Aviv.
But Tuesday's conversation between Mr Yasser Arafat's chief Jerusalem loyalist, Mr Faisal Husseini, and Tel Aviv mayor Mr Ronnie Millo is threatening to cause a government crisis before Israel even has a new government.
It is also underlining how delicately Prime Minister elect Mr Benjamin Netanyahu will have to tread if he is to honour his recent pledges to prevent the collapse of the peace process.
The Husseini Millo meeting was the first face to face contact since the May 29th election between a leading figure in Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority and a loyalist from Mr Netanyahu's Likud. But it still should have been a thoroughly uncontroversial event.
The two men did not meet at Mr Husseini's headquarters, in the PLO's East Jerusalem Orient House offices - which Mr Netanyahu has threatened to close down. And they did not even discuss the issue of East Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, the hardliners who helped bring Mr Netanyahu to office were fuming.
Nobody loyal to the new Netanyahu government, they argued, had any business holding talks with Mr Husseini, who embodies Palestinian claims to Jerusalem, and who had scandalously invited a group of diplomats to Orient House later that day, to hear his concerns about Jerusalem's future under Mr Netanyahu's leadership.
As the controversy raged, Mr Millo said he had reported to Mr Netanyahu's office on the content of the talks. That brought a threat from one of Mr Netanyahu's coalition partners.
Mr Millo's meeting with Mr Husseini was "contemptible", raged Mr Moshe Peled of the Tsomet faction. "If Netanyahu sent Millo to the meeting I will recommend that my party not enter the government".
Although he won the election two full weeks ago, Mr Netanyahu is still having trouble putting together a coalition and allocating cabinet portfolios, and so has not yet taken up his post. He can well do without additional complications.
So he tried to appease his hardline critics yesterday, promising to take a tougher stance than did the outgoing Labour government against "illegal" PLO political activities in Orient House.
Mr Millo, however, seems determined to cause more problems. In radio interviews yesterday he suggested that a meeting between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat was only a matter of time. "In the end it will happen".
But if and when it does judging by yesterday's hysterical right wing reaction to a far less significant meeting, Mr Netanyahu can expect to find himself swiftly, characterised as a betrayer of those who voted him into office.