Many Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians are convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intractable because neither side has abandoned the goal of defeating the other, and neither really believes in compromise. This is a myth.
Last month, I spent seven days in an Israeli living room, sitting “shiva” with my family to mourn the loss of a relative. Hundreds of people came to visit. Hundreds of conversations unfolded on almost any topic imaginable. One of the purposes of the shiva is to distract mourners from their loss through engagement with the living in conversations on the mundane.
