It has taken Donald Trump eight weeks in the White House to put in a phone call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

By comparison, his predecessor, Barack Obama, included Mr Abbas in his very first round of international calls.

The conversation on Saturday was scheduled to take 30 minutes but lasted only 10. However, by all accounts, it was cordial and Mr Trump invited Mr Abbas to meet him in Washington so they can discuss a renewal of the diplomatic process.

No dates were set, but President Trump said he would like to see him “very soon” and, on Monday, his personal “special representative for international negotiations”, Jason Greenblatt, arrived in Jerusalem to start studying the issues.

Together with David Friedman, who was finally confirmed on Friday as the new US Ambassador to Israel, and the President’s special adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has also been appointed to oversee the Israel-Palestine issue, the three men make an interesting team. All are Orthodox Jews, none have any conventional diplomatic experience but have very close personal ties to Mr Trump, and have all long been supporters of the Israeli right wing.

Yet despite that, after a short, euphoric period in which Israel’s right-wingers believed the new administration would herald a period of unbridled settlement building in the West Bank and enthusiastically accept annexations of Maale Adumim and other parts of “Area C”, the Trump administration has fallen back on the established US policy of supporting a two-state solution and considering the settlements an obstacle to peace.

The tone is very different – much warmer to Israel and distinctly frosty towards the Palestinians - but still, on the surface, the same policy.

None of this should be surprising. For a start, Mr Trump, at least in one respect, is no different to previous US presidents. He is gripped by the belief that with the power and influence of his office, he can be the one to deliver the holy grail of an Israeli-Arab peace. His conversations with other world leaders, and especially pro-American rulers in the Arab world, have furnished him with the understanding that the Palestinians’ concerns also need to be addressed, but above all, he has had Benjamin Netanyahu advise him.

Mr Netanyahu’s priority was never to embark on a settlement drive – he wants to maintain the status quo in the West Bank while focusing all diplomatic efforts on building an international coalition against Iran. But someone has to rein the right-wingers within his own coalition led by Education Minister Naftali Bennett.

To maintain the political balancing act in Jerusalem, the prime minister needs pressure from Washington. Whether or not a real diplomatic initiative will emerge from the Trump White House has yet to be seen but, meanwhile, the right noises are being made to keep the old status quo in place.