I haven't been linking to most of the articles about the evolving negotiations between Israel and the West Bank Palestinians - for that you can go directly to Haaretz (though not to the New York Times. It's not exciting enough for them at the moment). But here's an interesting tidbit - from Yahoo. It appears that a rising young Egyptian actor is in deep trouble at home, to the extent that his career is endangered, because he was so careless as to participate in a film alongside an Israeli. He's claiming that the film is anti-American, but this may not save him.
As you may recollect, there has been peace between Israel and Egypt since before the birth of this young man. There are no border issues, no Palestinian refugees in Egypt... peace. And yet look how unfriendly they are.
An icy peace with Egypt has been and remains much better than any kind of war. My point is not to condemn the Egyptians (well...), but rather to point out that there are hundreds of miles of desert between Israel and Egypt. The distance between the towns of a future Palestine and Israel will be, in some places, far less than hundreds of feet. Hatred of this sort between Palestinians and Israelis will be a constant and existential threat to peace. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be striving for it, because we should, but we shouldn't be kidding ourselves that we'll get there.
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