Results from joint courses run by an interfaith community set up on a once barren hilltop in central Israel for Jewish and Arab students could teach their elders a thing or two about peace I arrived in Israel on a Sunday evening, with a sense of foreboding. A few days earlier, a murderous attack had taken place in a Jerusalem synagogue and violence was in the air. There was talk of Jewish extremists seeking revenge for Palestinian violence and I wondered whether I was about to witness another cycle of tit-for-tat killing in this unholy of holy lands. As I left the airport, the autumn rains arrived and the land seemed to shrink and cower, drenched from the assault. I took a taxi to a village between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv called Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, which in English means Oasis of