“The deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans,” the reading from the Book of Wisdom tells us. Hoping for a better outcome than that, President Barack Obama hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for dinner Wednesday, a prelude to direct negotiations between the leaders Thursday.

While the U.S. is calling on the leaders to forge a final peace agreement within one year, major progress in the early going is unlikely. The two sides are far apart on key issues as they meet in face-to-face negotiations for the first time since December, 2008.

Heightening tensions, a Palestinian gunman opened fire Tuesday on an Israeli vehicle traveling near the West Bank city of Hebron, killing four passengers. The militant Hamas movement, which rejects Israel’s right to exist and opposes peace talks, claimed responsibility. Israeli officials called the shooting an attempt to sabotage the discussions, and the White House and Abbas weighed in with their own condemnations.

To underscore the administration’s desire to avoid the kind of timid and tentative deliberations the Book of Wisdom describes, former Sen. George Mitchell, Obama’s special Mideast peace envoy, said the goal of reaching a deal within one year is intended to counter a sense among many in the Mideast that years of inconclusive negotiations mean the process is never-ending.

“It’s very important to create a sense that this has a definite concluding point,” Mitchell told reporters at the White House. “And we believe that it can be done.”

Spurce: A report by Michele Kelemen for NPR.org and articles by Robert Burns for the Associated Press and by Reuters