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Naomi Ragen is the Jerusalem-based author of . Information on her books and mailing list can be found on her website at .
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By Naomi Ragen
August 3, 2003
I had an e-mail the other day from some fine fellow who was all upset. "According to you, there will never be peace between Israelis and the Palestinians," he fumed.
Not so, dear sir. In fact, if you lived here in Jerusalem as I do, surrounded by Muslim Arabs - you'd know that in many places, we already have peace.
All you'd have to do is go to that great center of Jerusalem day and night-life the Mall, a large three-tiered structure housing restaurants (all kosher) movie theaters, and hundreds of stores of all kinds (I don't have to tell you, right? It's a mall.) What's different here, is that you will find sitting around the fountains outside Pizza Hut Arab families with children in baby carriages, munching pizza beside Jewish families from neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria. Look at them, enjoying the air conditioning, and happily feeding their little ones from paper cups filled with ice cream on a summer evening.
All this without a Road Map. Without the release of terrorists. Without a Palestinian State. Without the permission of Yasser Arafat. Or Sharon. Or George Bush.
Now, what lessons can we learn about how to actually achieve MidEast peace from the Jerusalem Mall? I'll tell you.
You can only enter the mall if you have no weapons. The reason Jew and Arab can sit peacefully side by side enjoying life and each other's company, is that anyone who wants to get into the mall is carefully checked for weapons before he's allowed to enter. That's right. All cars are checked, included the boot and back seat. People get their bags checked. They are wanded.
Get rid of the terrorists. Get rid of the illegal weapons. Stop up the tunnels bringing weapons from Egypt to Gaza. Deport arch terrorists like Arafat. Keep all the jailed terrorists under lock and key, and destroy the Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah to the last building and the last man. And then you might not have peace, but you will have Arab and Jew sitting side by side with their families on a cool summer evening, making an attempt to quietly live their lives and solve their differences.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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