Israel hosts an unprecedented summit with Arab leaders

DAVID BEN-GURION never much believed in the prospect of peace with Arabs. When Israel’s first prime minister died in 1973, after years of retirement in Sde Boker, a sleepy kibbutz deep in the Negev desert, his country had just emerged from another war with its angry Arab neighbours. None recognised Israel’s existence. No doubt he would have been shocked by the scene half a century later: a few miles from his tomb, the foreign ministers of four Arab states—Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—met their Israeli and American counterparts at a hotel in Sde Boker on March 27th, clasped hands amid smiles (pictured above), then tucked into kebabs together.