Introduction: Letter From New York
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010It happened again the other day: I am walking home from my office; the otherwise average-looking man wearing the sandwich board passes me, headed in the opposite direction. “Peace in the Middle East is possible,” his sign reads. “Ask me.”
Perhaps because the headlines of the day are dominated by new violence in Israel, I stop, pivot, and walk briskly to catch up with him. And I am rewarded for my quick action. As this man, Elad, explains, the means for settling the intractable conflict between Arabs and Israelis is really very simple. “Golf,” he tells me, and hands me a flyer outlining, in grammatically inexact English, the ongoing efforts to establish a three-hole course and club south of Tel Aviv that would welcome all people in peace. I thank him and promise to examine his web site, grateful for this moment that I would have missed had I not stopped for a closer look. (more…)