Mainstream Israeli and Palestinian leaders roundly condemned the horrifying spate of attacks in the US yesterday, but the violence was clearly being viewed in wildly differing contexts: Palestinian factions were issuing denials of involvement, while Israel went on alert for possible attack itself.
Although the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, expressed shock at the attacks, and sent condolences to the US leadership and people, on the main street of East Jerusalem local people were distributing sweets, cars honked horns, drivers flashed victory signs, and young children danced with small Palestinian flags in celebration of what was seen as the US getting its come-uppance for its perceived pro-Israeli bias.
There were similar demonstrations, complete with joyous gunfire, in several West Bank towns, notably Nablus, where Palestinian Authority policemen made efforts to disperse impromptu celebratory parades. "I feel I am in a dream. I never believed that one day the United States would come to pay a price for its support to Israel," said Mustafa (24), a Palestinian gunman quoted in Nablus by the Associated Press.
Palestinian radical groups - including splinter factions of the PLO and Islamic extremist organizations - distanced themselves from the attacks. A spokesman for Islamic Jihad, however, charged that the US had effectively invited such violence by siding with Israel.
And the Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said that while "we don't support attacks on civilians, we say to America that it needs to do some reassessing."
For its part, Israel was bracing for attack - on the assumption that whoever was responsible for the violence in the US would likely want to target Israel. It placed its air force on alert, sent planes up to patrol its skies, and closed its airspace to all incoming flights bar those run by its own airlines, on which security personnel are stationed as standard practice. Israel also evacuated some overseas diplomatic offices.
The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, pledged full support to the United States and the Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, called for all-out war on terrorism.
"Knowing our bitter experience of terrorism, if it turns out the events in United States were a terrorist attack, Israel will do all it can, and expresses condolences to the victims of the tragedy," said a spokesman for Mr Sharon.
Mr Peres said the world must "fight without compromise" against terrorism. "The danger of terrorism is a worldwide danger. The world must organise itself to face it because terrorism can strike anywhere, over borders and over the heads of the most powerful armies in the world," Mr Peres said.
Mr Peres sent an offer of aid to President Bush, and the Defence Ministry said Israeli army's rescue unit was waiting to fly the US as soon as the Americans reopened air space.
The Defence Minister, Mr Binyamin Ben Eliezer, ordered the mission, which will include teams specialised in rescuing victims trapped in collapsed buildings.
While the Israeli government met in emergency session, two former prime ministers - Mr Ehud Barak and Mr Benjamin Netanyahu - issued impassioned pleas for international co-operation to thwart acts of terrorism, urging the isolation of states that sponsored such acts.
Mr Netanyahu was downright apocalyptic, declaring that "this is a turning point in history" and that if the democratic world did not now unite to stop terrorism and its sponsors, "the entire free world" would be in danger.
"No one understands this better than Israel," he said. "We've been on the frontline of this for decades. But now terror has hit the heart of the free world."
Insisting that it "didn't matter" who turned out to be responsible for yesterday's attacks, Mr Netanyahu warned that the terrorists' capacity for causing damage was advancing apace, that regimes supporting them were ever closer to biological and nuclear capabilities, and that "they want to destroy our civilisation."
The attacks underlined the dangers posed by "a terrorist Palestinian state," he added. The only solution, he said, was "the use of force" against terrorist regimes. "They have to be destroyed."