Flanked by his wife, his national-security adviser, and the head of the Mossad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise visit last week to Oman and met with its leader, Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

Beyond the headline is a stunningly paradoxical trend line: The most significant period of Israeli-Arab de facto cooperation since the last real peace process, in the 1990s, is now taking place without one. Netanyahu and his right-wing government are reversing the notion that only peace with the Palestinians can ensure Israel’s acceptance into an angry and hostile Arab world. The Arab street may still oppose Israel, but Arab leaders clearly don’t.

Netanyahu isn’t the first Israeli prime minister to meet Qaboos at home. Yitzhak Rabin had that honor in 1994. And while the current spate of Israeli-Arab activity is nowhere near the salad days of the 1990s in the wake of the Oslo Accords, the extent of Israeli contacts both above and below the table are impressive, especially because it’s the hard-line Netanyahu running the show and not the moderate Rabin.

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