It's probably in part due to our hopeful optimism that has kept the Jewish people going these past 2000 years in Galus, while the practicality of a few of us is what has protected us from that same hopeful optimism.

InJerusalem this weekend had a long article about a group of Palestinians and Israelis who meet regularly to learn about each other as human beings, and not discuss politics.

Here are a few interesting excerpts from the article.

At least once a month, Palestinian lawyer Abed Eriqat, 29, passes through the one exit out of Abu Dis where there is no security barrier, gritting his teeth at the soldiers manning the checkpoint on the road where most of his life he had traveled freely to neighboring Jerusalem.

If you didn't know why Eriqat needs to now go through a check point, the article clarifies it for us:

Abu Dis is generally considered a hotbed for extremists. Three suicide bombers during the intifada came from the village, and Al-Quds University was known for supporting groups affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The campus was also home to the Abu-Jihad Museum honoring Palestinian "martyrs" and had just celebrated a week-long event honoring the life of the late Palestinian engineer of the suicide bomb, Yahya Ayyash.

But obviously that is past history, and with Peace in the air, what Ereqat describes next shouldn't be happening.

To help him get through the wait and then interrogation, moments that he describes as the most humiliating and hopeless of his life, he sometimes uses an unusual tactic: remembering meetings with Israelis, even settlers, as a source of hope.

He's going to get a Peace Hug, so that's enough to get him through the trauma.

Yet just the other day Arutz-7 happens to have published a related article.

Israeli forces recently discovered a weapons lab in the village of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem. Three Palestinian Authority men have been arrested on suspicion of using the lab to build bombs and weapons for attacks on Israeli citizens.

Military officials believe the discovery of the weapons lab led to the prevention of terrorist attacks. The lab is part of a larger effort to carry out attacks in the greater Jerusalem area, they warned.

I can comfortably live with Palestinian lawyer Abed Eriqat feeling moments that he describes as the most humiliating and hopeless of his life, because those few moments of his discomfort protect the rest of us, naive Israelis included, from Palestinian suicide bombers and terrorists from Eriqat's village of Abu Dis.

I wonder if they'll discuss that at their next group hug.



By the way, here are some other statements and comments about Abed Eriqat, co-director of Peace Now's Youth Dialogue program:

"Abed grew up throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the little village of Abu Dis in the West Bank."

But Eriqat is now much more intelligent about that now, as he apparently realized it's futility.

Instead he's chosen a new tactic to get Jews out of the Land of Israel.

He finds that "engaging with Israeli partners for peace is a more constructive form of resistance. " as "working with Israelis... to advocate for peace is a form of "resistance" to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank."

God protect us from naive Israelis and Palestinians terrorists and "resisters".