Mecca's Grand Mosque. Hasan Jamali/APMecca is best known as a site of pilgrimage for the world's Muslims. But Saudi Arabia's holy city is hosting an unusually important secular event today when King Abdullah convenes high-octane talks designed to head off a dangerous clash between rival Palestinian factions.
The king's invitation to Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister and leader of the Islamist movement Hamas, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, underlines the way Saudi Arabia is trying to play a more muscular diplomatic role across the Middle East.
Fighting between supporters of the two sides in Gaza has been "a shameful stain on the history of the honourable national Palestinian struggle to end occupation", Abdullah royally rebuked them after more than 60 people were killed in 10 days. Such bloodshed "serves only the interests of the enemies of Islam and the Arabs", he said.
Given his role as "Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines", the invitees could hardly ignore the appeal to bury their differences.
The Mecca meeting, in a guest palace overlooking the Kaaba, fits into what analysts see as a new pattern involving the normally low-key Saudis, who are more used to quietly wielding their chequebooks to buy influence and preserve the status quo than launching public initiatives to achieve their goals.
The oil-rich, conservative kingdom has been galvanised into action by fears about mounting chaos and violence in Iraq, the increasingly assertive Iranian influence across the region - in Iraq, Lebanon and most recently in Palestine - and anxieties about a widening divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
It's an open secret that the Saudis were horrified by last summer's war in Lebanon, when Hizbullah seemed to be confronting Israel as a proxy for Iran, Syria and the Palestinians. When Syria's president Bashar al-Assad taunted Arab leaders as "half men" for hoping that Israel would defeat the Shia guerrillas, everyone knew who he meant.
The Saudis have their own Shia majority in the oil-producing eastern provinces - 10% to 15% of the population - and are anxious to avoid unrest there. "The Saudis say they are afraid of the Shia but it's not true," argues a senior Arab diplomat. "They know the Americans will defend them and their oil. But they are afraid of the example that Hizbullah has set - and that others will try to imitate them."
Thus the attempts to broker a peace deal in Lebanon - which have included an unprecedented meeting with Hizbullah officials - and exploratory contacts with the Iranians. Last month King Abdullah met Ali Larijani, the Islamic Republic's chief nuclear negotiator.
"The Saudis want to be seen by the Americans as the ones who make a difference," argues the Saudi scholar Madawi al-Rasheed of Kings College, London. "There are a lot of references to Islamic unity but they are trying to go to areas where they can be given credit."
Observers predict continued Saudi diplomacy in Lebanon and Iraq as well as the Palestinian territories, where national unity is vital to head off civil war and end the debilitating boycott by the US and EU. If that difficult task can be achieved then long-stalled negotiations with Israel could - in theory - resume, most likely on the basis of the Arab League plan for peace with Israel that was brokered by Saudi Arabia in 2002.
That moment may still be distant. But maybe the spirit of Mecca will do the trick.
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