On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, last week, my parents’ dining room table was home to a political debate at least as interesting as the VP one we saw last Thursday night. Six women and one man, all actively involved with their synagogue (some as clergy, some as volunteers) sat around the table, and with the debate one day away, discussed, what else, politics.

For some, politics is a topic to be steered clear of during holiday meals. Not so at my parents’ house. And certainly not so with this crowd of people. To give you a little perspective, many of these women have worked very hard over the past 30 years to get to where they (and we) are today. They have been in education, putting our children and their needs first for years. They donated more time and money to build the Jewish community they wanted to live in, and felt their children deserved, than anyone else I know. They have fought school systems and garnered community support in changing unfair policies. They have truly been community organizers in their community. It wasn’t work that they were paid for, but it was work that needed to be done - so they did it.

These are passionate people. So it didn’t surprise me at all that they had views on the election, the economy, and Sarah Palin.

“I read an article recently that says Todd Palin has been complaining about how much time this campaign is taking away from their family life”, said one of the guests.

That was all that was needed before everyone’s blood was boiling and a lively conversation was started. To begin to quote the conversation would both muddle the truth (as I’m lousy as remembering quotes) and take away from my memory of the moment of panic, excitement, and energy. But suffice it to say, everyone had an immediate negative reaction. I do remember that I suggested that the article was a teaser, an opening for her to step down from the race, if the debate went poorly. And I know that anger was expressed at that sentiment - not for the politicality of the move, but for what would inevitably be the fallout for all women, everywhere.

I no longer think Palin should step down from the race. Not because I want her to be Vice President (or worse, President), but because someday, I want some other woman to be Vice President of the United States - and CEO or President of a prestigious company and rabbi of a large congregation and a Supreme Court Chief Justice and Senator - every other job that too many women have been denied because of sexism. If Palin stepped down, and claimed, as frankly maybe she ought to, that the campaign was taking too much time away from her family, I can’t imagine any other female with a family being able to accomplish anything this big again any time soon.

Palin has five children. One is serving in Iraq - a brave and noble thing to do. One is a seventeen-year-old daughter due to give birth in a few months to her own child. And one is a 6-month old with Down Syndrome. Any one of these children is enough to demand full-time attention from a parent, but three? Darn right, the campaign is taking away from her family time. And I’m not honestly sure it is a choice that I would have made. At 40-something years old, if I were in her shoes, I well might have said, “Not this time. Its not the right time for my family, ask me again in 4 or 8 years”.

But I’d still want, and more importantly, deserve, to be asked. To be given the option of deciding whether or not the job and my family was something that I could juggle.

I wouldn’t want the big-wigs in the campaign (or more realistically for other people, in the company) to say, “oh, don’t bother asking her, she’s got children at home”. If Sarah Palin were to step down as even Conservative columnists have suggested, we’d have to begin the fight all over again. Never mind the 30+ years of work that those women around the table on Rosh Hashanah put in. Never mind all the progress that they made. It’ll all go down the drain.

As the conversation drifted from Sarah Palin and national politics to more local politics such as our public schools not always upholding the letter of the law regarding religious holidays, voices changed. Stories that I had never heard began being told. I heard about the petitioning efforts to get public schools to close for the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I heard about the meetings between the Jewish community and town officials to reschedule town events so that they wouldn’t conflict with holidays. In short, I heard about efforts that were taken for me and my peers.

Had someone not done these for me, I’d have grown up forced to decide between my Jewishness and my Americanness. And if we slide backwards on all the strides that have been made, my children may very well be forced to make decisions that I didn’t have to make. Sarah Palin’s candidacy scares me on many levels. But after that conversation, the idea of her recusing her candidacy scares me almost as much.

Two weeks ago, I knew John McCain to be a man that I was thinking about voting for. A lifelong democrat, some of my positions on certain issues, lean towards the middle ground. And I knew McCain to be a moderate, who even veered towards the liberal on some issues. I mean, come on, if Joe Lieberman, a former DEMOCRATIC candidate for VP could be on his REPUBLICAN short list for VP, how bad could he be?

Additionally, I had been a tad hesitant about the new Senator from Illinois, who, it seemed to me, just hadn’t been around long enough. In a previous election, I had voted for Governor Deval Patrick (now the governor of MA) and while I think he is certainly leading us in the right direction, I noticed him struggle during his first days in office. It took him a while to get into the mode of running a state. And while I respect the fact that new jobs take some getting used to, I need a president who is ready to lead from day one.

So...coming from that hesitation, while I WAS leaning towards voting democratic, I was certainly giving McCain a second (and third and fourth) look.

I would still be one of those 10% of voters who are undecided, if McCain was still acting like Senator McCain - but that candidate seems to have disappeared. In his place, is a robot that looks like John McCain but speaks like George W. Bush (or perhaps Karl Rove). His passion for living up to his ideals is gone. He is merely toting the party line. He is avoiding reporters, and their questions.

Sure this robotic McCain has come out swinging. The problem is, he is not swinging at those that have caused our economy to be in shambles and our country’s image to have plummeted in the International sphere. Instead, he’s swinging at the media and reporters who dare question him!

In all honesty, he’s starting to come off as a dictator. He wants people to vote for him because of his experience as a prisoner of war, and then to stop talking to him. His behavior indicates that he’ll tolerate no second guessing, no questioning, and no processing from the American people. He is going to make decisions (thought through or not), and we’re going to have to live with the outcomes. McCain is expecting blind faith from us. And I’m expecting that we’re too smart for that.

This whole shift in personality makes me wonder who is in charge. If McCain continues to insist that nothing has changed, then I would wonder if he is mentally stable. If he can acknowledge that Senator McCain is not the same person as Candidate McCain, I want to know who President McCain plans to be.

Would he be a robot operated by the bigwigs of the Republican party? Or would he be the McCain that we used to know and respect?

These past two weeks, with the pick of his VP, with the lies that he is sanctioning, with his avoidance of the issues, and with the sequestering of Palin from reporters and voters, it is clear to me that any hesitations I had about Obama are FAR less problematic than the erratic, dual-personality of McCain.

I was making fun of Sarah Palin’s “abstinence only” policy. I mean, really, is there anything easier to make fun of, than a governor who professes abstinence only, yet has a 17-year-old, unwed daughter who is pregnant? It would only be easier to ridicule her if she was so staunchly pro-life that she was condemning that daughter to marry the baby’s father and raise the child, all before she has graduated from high school.

Oh...that IS the situation?

Right....ok, that is so dire, that I probably shouldn’t make fun of her. Or pass judgement. Or base my decision for the election on a 17-year-old’s mistake.

Bristol Palin is not running for Vice President.

But her mother is. And that is the same mother that is so out of touch with America that she thinks it is better not to teach kids about safe sex, and to just pretend that they won’t be having sex at all. Values based education? None of that here. The only value Palin thinks is worth teaching is “abstain”.

That is the same mother that teaches abortion is so wrong that it is worth letting a mistake made when you are 17 years old, influence your life, your education, your self-worth, and your marriage choices. In fact, this mother takes away all choices from women completely.

What is most concerning to me, is that I’m not sure the McCain campaign actually vetted Governor Palin and her family (and the pregnancy, and the ethics scandal) before asking her to be VP. I still hold that she was chosen only because she is female. And that is insulting. And degrading. And sexist.Oh ya, and its dangerous, if this is any indication of how McCain plans to run the country.

Am I on my high-horse again? Sorry about that. I’ll tone it down.

A friend sent me an article that she thought I would appreciate. I’ll share it with you, here. I am trying very hard to differentiate my opinion on Palin into two categories, ideological and personal. I know that I am appalled at some of the opinions she holds. But I think that is ok. I am entitled to disagree, even vehemently, with politicians’ opinions. As, by the way, are you - with their opinions, and mine. The question is, am I more appalled at them, because she is a woman, and I take personal offense from them? And if so, is that fair?

I guess I have an unfair expectation of women. I figure if you and I have fought similar fights, tried to break through that elusive glass ceiling, struggled to find the balance of work and family, and earned yourself a degree of higher education, we would have more in common. And if we don’t have things in common, I guess I make the bad assumption that you wouldn’t be so quick and willing to throw me (and my decisions) under the bus.

Many people see the idea of a female VP as an advancement for women everywhere. As a breaking through that glass ceiling, so to speak. But, I think in this case, a vote for this specific woman does not equal a vote for women.

Republicans are seemingly unsure what to think of her. On one hand, a young, new face brings an element of excitement to the campaign. Surely she will shore up the support of the hard-line conservatives. She is a gun-toting, oil drilling, mother of five, anti-abortionist, wife of a union member. On the other hand, she has no foreign policy experience. She has no Washington experience, is being investigated for a scandal in her governmental office in Alaska, and her major accomplishment (that the press keeps toting) is that she was known as “barracuda” on her high school basketball team.

(insert eye roll here - are we really ready to put a woman whose most recent accomplishment is that she was a high school basketball star in the oval office?)

Palin comes across as your next door neighbor. And while I’m sure your neighbors are often quite pleasant people, the world is going to fall apart if she approaches foreign dictators in the same manner that your neighbors approach you about moving your car, turning down the stereo, or cutting down that trouble-some tree.

In McCain’s first test of ability to make a big decision, by choosing Palin, I believe he has failed. And while the standard party line might temporarily be one of support, I’d be surprised if she doesn’t resign before November 4. And then I will wonder if this was all a rouse, a game to put a stop-gap in the excitement following the Democratic National Convention, and a PR stunt to entice female voters away from Obama. If his intention was to build attention for his campaign, he certainly got it! But I’m not convinced it was the kind of attention he was aiming for....

As a former Hillary supporter, I am insulted that the McCain campaign thinks that I will automatically switch my allegiance from one female candidate to another. I resent the idea that I place my gender above my ideals. I’m a fan of my uterus and ovaries - and I’d love to see someone in office with the same anatomy. But I value my right to decide what to do with that anatomy more than I care about the tokenism of placing a woman in the oval office. A woman who doesn’t trust another woman to decide what to do with her own body? A woman who is so staunchly against abortion that even in instances of rape and incest, she would outlaw the procedure. That’s no leader. That’s a dictator.

Everyone knows it, but no one is willing to say it. Sarah Palin was chosen because she is a woman. And that is sexist. And THAT is insulting. In an election that America continues to boast as its most progressive, history-making, and barrier-breaking, McCain’s nomination of Palin just took us back 30 years.

Over the past few days the husband began feeling anxious and suffered from insomnia. He roamed the hills surrounding the guest house he was staying at, muttering about Jesus.

Dr. Taufik Abu Nasser, a senior psychiatrist at Poria, said the man underwent a series of tests in the emergency room, including a psychiatric examination and blood tests to determine whether he had used hallucinogenic drugs.

“Then at some point, after he’d calmed down, he suddenly got up and left the ward,” recalled Dr. Abu Nasser. “There’s a walkway connecting the emergency room to the other wards, and he just climbed the wall next to it and jumped from a height of over 13 feet to the ground level.”

Wikipedia’s article on Jerusalem Syndrome describes three types of the affliction. The first two categories are of people who have had some history of psychosis prior to arriving in Jerusalem. But the best known type is the third one. It describes a previously stable/mentally balanced person who becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem - or another place with religious sites (in this case, the Sea of Galilee).

The psychosis is accompanied by an intense religious experience, and often a personification of a religious character (the messiah, John the Baptist, Mohammed, etc.). Many times sufferers believe that they have been personally called by God, and are in conversation with Him.

Wikipedia lists a distinct pattern of behaviors:
1. Anxiety, agitation, nervousness and tension, plus other unspecified reactions.

2. Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family and to tour Jerusalem alone. Tourist guides aware of the Jerusalem syndrome and of the significance of such declarations may at this point refer the tourist to an institution for psychiatric evaluation in an attempt to preempt the subsequent stages of the syndrome. If unattended, these stages are usually unavoidable.

3. A need to be clean and pure: obsession with taking baths and showers; compulsive fingernail and toenail cutting.

4. Preparation, often with the aid of hotel bed-linen, of a long, ankle-length, toga-like gown, which is always white.

5. The need to shout psalms or verses from the Bible, or to loudly sing religious hymns or spirituals. Manifestations of this type serve as a warning to hotel personnel and tourist guides, who should then attempt to have the tourist taken for professional treatment. Failing this, the two last stages will develop.

6. A procession or march to one of Jerusalem’s holy places.

7. Delivery of a ‘sermon’ in a holy place. The sermon is usually very confused and based on a plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life.

The pattern is bizarrely familiar from case to case. And those who work in the tourist industry (hotel workers, tour guides, bus drivers, etc.) know to watch for it. Until you experience it (or read about someone who did), it sounds....almost silly, perhaps childish. Someone being so moved by a visit to a religious site that they think they are God (or another religious figure)? Yet, it is very real and happens with a surprisingly alarming rate. According to the SavyTraveler, in 1999, fifty people were diagnosed with it! [They also note that in a typical year, Israel sees 3 or 4 of these cases - and perhaps the increase in 1999 was related to the approach of the millenium.]

I’m tired of walking everywhere because buses and cabs can’t get down the main streets of Jerusalem because President Bush’s entourage is here.

I’m tired of hearing helicopters roam the skies, looking for...i don’t know what. If they’re American, they’re concerned about the security of the President. If they’re Israeli helicopters, they’re concerned about the security of everyone else.

I’m tired of the rocket attacks. A mall in Ashkelon was hit the day before yesterday. 15 people were wounded, four of them (including a mother and her toddler) were injured seriously. And 87 people were treated for shock. EIGHTY SEVEN. The newspaper has a picture of the toddler’s bloody shoe, left at the scene. I want to vomit.

I’m tired of talking about peace while the Palestinians talk about Nakba. How do we move forward if they can only look to the past?

I’m tired of the UN. In general, I think they are relatively useless. And I’m tired of them making stupid mistakes like commemorating with the Palestinians on their Nakba day.

And speaking of the N-word, I’m sick of it. The Palestinians aren’t upset that the Israelis took some of their land 60 years ago. They are upset that we exist, in general. And I’m sorry to have to break the news, but we’re here to stay. And not only are we here to stay, but while we’re here, we tend to make life better for the Palestinians than ANY OTHER Arab country - despite the fact that they do their best to kill us.

I’m tired of the security warnings that say not to ride buses and to stay out of the center of town. And I’m tired of feeling guilty when I go into the center of town, despite the warnings.

I’m tired of this scandal that hasn’t really even begun yet, with PM Olmert. I’m ready for some politicians (in all the countries of this world) to be people that we can trust, people who are of a higher moral fiber.

I’m just plain old tired, and I want to see something change. And the longer it takes, the less willing I am going to be to be the one to change.

As many of you know, I grew up in the States, where Memorial Day means BBQs and sales, and the Fourth of July (Independence Day) means more BBQs and fireworks. In America, the two holidays are a few months apart. Not so in Israel.

I wanted to share some of the highlights of my experience with you.

Tuesday night began Yom HaZikaron - Day of Remembrance. I had an eery thought as I walked home from school that afternoon. I noticed a man carrying a bundle of flowers home. Usually if I see this (especially on Friday afternoons before Shabbat starts), I think to myself “I wonder who the lucky woman is?”, and that thought is usually followed by, “gee, I wish someone would bring me flowers!” But at that moment, all I could do was wonder whose grave those flowers were going to be placed on the following day.

The day began with a 1 minute siren through the whole country, where everyone stood for a moment of silence. Most people were at a memorial ceremony of some sort. And most people wear white. I went to a high school ceremony that honored and remembered the forty-four graduates of their school that were killed while defending Israel. It was very touching. There were songs, poems, and stories. Each person was remembered individually, as two students carried a wreath bearing that person’s name across the stage. Occasionally, non-students would carry the wreath and that was the hardest to watch, because it was usually the fallen soldier’s parents, wife, children, or siblings.

On Wednesday morning I joined thousands and thousands of people at the nation’s military cemetery, Har Herzl. Another siren blared at 11am, for two minutes. I was not quite at the cemetery by the time the siren had began. In fact, I was in the middle of walking through a busy intersection right outside of the cemetery. The area that had been chaotic and crazy a moment before, stop and stood at a stand still. It was very powerful to watch.

The picture that I’ve placed in the article is from ynetnews.com, and it is of the moment of the siren. Although the soldier saluting is probably what is supposed to be striking about, if you look beyond him, you can see a row of people standing next to their cars. You can see buses and cars stopped. A split second before the siren, these cars all had drivers in them and were rolling right along. Now life stood still.

I was worried that I would be less effected by this siren, because there had been one the previous night, one last week for Holocaust Remembrance Day, and one a few weeks ago as a practice. I’m grateful to say that I was definitely still moved! I was a little bit more able to look around and see all the people standing still - bus drivers who had gotten out of their buses, crossing guards and police officers who stood at attention, even little kids who stopped playing.

You can read more about peoples experiences with the day here, here, here, and you can see a video of people stopping for the siren here!

In the evening between Yom HaZikaron (Day of Remembering) and Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day), there is a moment of transition. We have to move from feeling the deep despair of remembering the over 22,000 people killed (over 1,200 of them were murdered in terrorist attacks), to being able to celebrate the fact that our State has been here for 60 years.

The State puts on a really beautiful and touching (although perhaps it could have been a little shorter? I wanted to party!) ceremony helping us move emotionally from memorial day to independence day. You can read about it here.

And Israel goes out and parties! I spent last night in downtown Jerusalem where it was one big non-stop party. If you wanted a light show, you had one. If you wanted music, you had that. If you wanted a sing-along of Israeli folk songs (which I did), you had that. And if you wanted to Israeli dance with thousands of other people (which I definitely did!), you had it. There was food, drinks, silly string, balloons, inflatable hammers to bop each other on the head, and lots of general happiness.

Today will be a day of family time, of BBQs, and of celebration. I’m heading up north with some friends for the rest of the holiday weekend. We will celebrate in traditional Israeli style with the grilled (charred?) meat and some hiking along one of Israel’s many beautiful trails.

It started with the ceremonial lowering of our nation’s flag from the flag pole. And then a large torch was lit - from which six smaller ones would be lit, representing the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. One torch for each million of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust over sixty years ago. They were lit by survivors of the Holocaust, after a video shared with us their stories of survival and of their dedication to building this state.

The memorial service for the victims and heroes of the Holocaust took place as it does every year, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, outside of Yad Vashem - Israel’s Holocaust Museum. Tonight, all around the world, Jewish communities are marking this memorial day with ceremonies, worship services, and solemn moments of silence.

The stage stands in front of a sculpture of Jews being marched to their death. All eyes are points downwards except for two pairs. There is an older man, holding a Torah, and looking up towards the Heavens - perhaps wondering where God is and hoping for guidance. And there is a young child whose eyes meet yours, almost pleading with you to answer his unasked question - where were you and why didn’t you save me?

In order to get to the seating area for the ceremony, one has to walk down a path called The Avenue of the Righteous Among The Nations. For a long time, there was a tree for every single non-Jew that the museum knows of, who saved or tried to save even one Jew during the Holocaust. Then they ran out of space.

Let me repeat that. They. Ran. Out. Of. Space.

Yad Vashem is not a small museum. And the grounds that it sits on are very large. Yet, the museum knows of so many people, over 17,000, who risked their lives, freedom, and safety in order rescue even one person, that there is no more room for more trees. On a day of remembering the overwhelming and massive tragedy that befell our people, I exist in awe of those that stood up for what they believed in, and risked their lives so that someone else could live. And they risked their lives so that their own chlidren would know that this world isn’t worth living in, if you can’t love and respect everyone. Their courage is awe-inspiring and impressive.

The juxtaposition of the ceremony taking place between the Avenue of the Righteous Among The Nations and the statue of Jews being marched to their death is a powerful message. Add these symbols to the symbol of today’s date (the same Hebrew date as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising), and you might begin to understand the extent to which the Holocaust is part of the varied Israeli and Jewish psyches.

Tomorrow morning at 10 am a two-minute siren will go off and the nation of Israel will stand still. We will stand at attention and remember the six million Jews who were lost. We will pay homage to an entire third of the Jewish people who were wiped out. Cars will stop in the middle of the road and people will get out to stand silently. Business transactions will be put on hold. Channel after channel on the television has gone off-air until tomorrow evening. Those that are still broadcasting are producing occasion appropriate programming.

On every visiting dignitary’s itinerary on a visit to Israel, is a trip to Yad Vashem. Every soldier in the army learns why he or she is defending her country, through seminars and programs at the Holocaust memorial museum. Every child named for someone lost in the Holocaust learns the origins of their name and is compelled to live up to the merits of their name. And every touring trip spends time at Yad Vashem. The goal is that there not to be a single person in this country, a single person in this world, that does not know of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

So it is, for these 24 hours, that every Israeli will remember why we have a state - and will forever need a state. We will acknowledge the sad fact that had Israel existed before the Second World War, we may not have needed to commemorate today. And following the national memorial service on television, we will pray the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.

The siren. The memorial service. The interruption of radio and television broadcasts. The ceremonies. The closing of restaurants and businesses. The two minutes of silence in the morning. A nation praying together for those it lost. The sudden and complete stopping of daily life when the siren sounds. That is how this people remembers its tragedy.

Israelis have this phrase, “אני לא פראייר” (ani lo fraiyer) - it roughly translates to “I ain’t no sucker!”. And it is more than a phrase, it is literally a way of life.

I was standing in Ben Gurion airport a few weeks ago, waiting semi-patiently to get my passport stamped to leave the country. I was directly behind that “please wait here” line when the man in front of me finished, and the clerk motioned for me to come up to the desk. Faster than a blink of an eye, a woman from two lines over veered in front of me and was up at the desk before I could yell סליחה (excuse me!). She threw her head over her shoulder, looked back at me, and said loudly, “I was here first”. “No, you weren’t”, I replied strongly and confidently. She ignored me, and while her husband and son chastised her afterwards for her rude behavior, she didn’t see anything wrong with it.

I, on the other hand, walked away from that interaction feeling used.

The whole incident probably cost me 30 seconds of my time, and before she had finished fiddling with her bag, I was through security ahead of her. But that still didn’t make me feel any less taken advantage of.

Unfortunately, I think I’ve been infected with the Israeli attitude of not wanting to be seen as a פראייר, a sucker. I actually think this woman in the passport control line is the exception. For the most part, Israelis aren’t out to get each other, just out to get as much for themselves as they can. So while you WILL be pushed out of “line” (ie. the clump that forms at an entrance to anywhere) if you don’t hold your ground, all it takes is a firm but polite assertion of your own rights, and people back down immediately. Its just that if you are a sucker enough to be taken advantage of, its pretty much a given that you will be. In which case, you will have no one to blame but yourself.

And I think that fear of being seen as a sucker has also permeated Israeli society - so much so that I’m convinced that it plays a part in every political and military decision made today. This is not to say that there isn’t a very real and live threat to Israel’s national security - because there is, and until we have peace with all of our neighbors, there always will be. That said, I think there is a (legitimate) fear that we will be taken advantage of on a grand scale. These proposed negotiations with Syria? Talking about opening borders with Gaza? Disengaging from Gaza in the summer of 2005? All are/were ripe with the possibilities of being taken advantage of and used. And with a history like that of the Jewish people (who were continually shuffled around from one kingdom to another, one promise to another) it comes as no surprise that the Israeli people would be overly cautious of being taken for a ride.

Negotiations, by definition, tend to be difficult. Unless you know your partner extremely well, it is hard to know what their true motives are. And many divorces will tell you that their former spouse turned into a different person from the one that they married, when they sat down at the negotiation table to sort out their assets. How much more so for people or countries that you distrust?

The Hebrew term for negotiations is literally translated as “give-and-take”. You can only “give and take” with a partner in whom you have some amount of trust. In order to give, you have to be sure that you aren’t being taken advantage of. And in order to take, you have to be sure you are only taking what is right, and aren’t trying to take advantage of your partner.

If Olmert gives back the Golan Heights, as he has been rumored to be ready to do, and gets nothing (or next to nothing) in return, his constituents will see him as the worlds biggest sucker. In order for something of this nature to be successful, the other side has to give too. We’ve already been through a one-sided “give” with the “take”. Israel evacuated Gaza of all its Jewish settlers. Every last Israeli was taken out and relocated. The promise was that this would lead to peace and security for us, and statehood for the Palestinians. Instead, it has led to a daily barrage of rocket attacks and a Hamas run government. Most people are pretty convinced that Israeli got the raw end of that deal, and aren’t looking forward to a repeat performance any time soon.

Although I will certainly take any kind of peace, in any way that I can get it - I don’t believe that you can create a lasting peace out of fear or trickery. You make peace by working together and trusting each other. You put your פראייר status, so to speak, in the hands of the other party, and know that they will not take you for all you’ve got. Until we can do that, I don’t think either side will be ready and able to make a meaningful peace.