THE seasonal spirit of goodwill seeped into peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which continued almost without a break through the Christmas holiday period.
Even if this did not quite enable the delegates to finalise their accord on Israel's partial military pullout from Hebron, it did see Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, holding their longest face to face meeting to date almost four hours of talks on Christmas Eve.
Israel has now abandoned its demand for the right to pursue suspected Palestinian militants into the four fifths of the city it is transferring to Mr Arafat's control the Palestinians have agreed to keep their armed policemen out of certain "buffer zones" surrounding some of the Jewish settler enclaves in the heart of the city. Mr Arafat says he expects to be signing the full accord by New Year's Eve, and that Mr Netanyahu has also pledged to begin the next phase of the peace process - an Israeli military withdrawal from rural areas of the West Bank - by mid February. Mr Netanyahu's office is similarly, although more vaguely, upbeat, talking of a signing ceremony next week.
But as Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat were gradually making the shift back from the brink of full scale confrontation to tentative co operation, there was no such easing of hostilities on the ground in Hebron or on the domestic Israeli political battlefield.
Every day in Hebron now sees a series of minor outbreaks of violence, each threatening to turn into something more dangerous but for the intervention of the massive Israeli military presence. The worst such trouble over the holiday period occurred on Christmas Day, when some of the 50 or so Jewish families who live in the city took over three empty houses in a well planned and highly publicised protest against the imminent military pullout. Seventeen settlers were arrested for resisting the army's efforts to evict them.
Several Palestinians were also arrested, after petrol bombs were thrown at army positions and at some of the Jewish homes.
Making progress with Mr Arafat, meanwhile, is costing Mr Netanyahu a goodly proportion of his longer established support. Settlers and their backers have been demonstrating outside his office and the Knesset, brandishing signs that accuse him of be straying his voters and his principles.
In the offices inside, the prime is leading a sustained, effort to win over sceptics within his own cabinet as to the virtues of the new accord and its ad vantages over the original deal on Hebron, signed by the late Yitzhak Rabin 15 months ago.
As of last night, Mr Netanyahu's campaign of persuasion was not going terribly well. Some ministers, such as the two from the vehemently pro settler National Religious Party, are adamantly opposed to the idea of Israel relinquishing the "city of the fathers" to the Palestinians, and are determined to vote against the accord. Others have been angered at Mr Netanyahu's failure to involve them properly in the negotiation process. "What are we sheep?" fumed one minister, anonymously, in the Hebrew press yesterday.
Still, the prime minister seems assured of his cabinet majority. And the moderate opposition Labour Party will guarantee him a sizeable majority should he bring the deal before the full Knesset for its approval. But Mr Ariel Sharon, the infrastructure minister, is leading the assault on Mr Netanyahu.
David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report