I came to Israel as a centrist, perhaps slightly to the right of center. I believed peace was possible, that we could live side by side with the Palestinians in their state -- on the Gaza strip and on the vast majority of West Bank land -- that was envisioned by the previous prime minister, Ehud Barak, and offered to Arafat in a deal brokered by then President Clinton at Camp David in 2000. On the day in 1993 that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty on the White House lawn, I jostled with my fellow staff members at the Cleveland Jewish News to get a look at the historic event on the screen of our 13-inch black-and-white television. I believe I may have snorted when the two shook hands -- Rabin looked like he was getting a tooth extracted and Arafat looked positively triumphant -- but I bought into the pageantry of it all.

I still did when we finally moved here, three children in tow and one arriving a year and a half later. If Jews had to leave their homes in the West Bank, I thought, so be it. If we had to give up some of what we believe is land promised to the Jews by God and our forebears, so be it. The price of peace, I rationalized.

Yet with each passing week and month that I live here, my optimism about peace and living in peace with our Arab neighbors fades and my desire to remain here grows.

After every suicide bombing, Hamas or Islamic Jihad release a videotape of their "martyr" who talks on camera about why he, or she, has decided to become a human bomb. The videos are usually released to the Arab cable network, al-Jazeera, and picked up by Israel's television, which sometimes gives a running translation. I hear the venom in their voices and see their conviction that they are right -- and their belief that they will achieve paradise for their actions. I see the bomber's parents interviewed, usually flashing a victory sign and accepting congratulations from their neighbors and friends. And I realize that another generation of Palestinians has been taught to hate Jews and that their ultimate goal is to drive us all into the sea.

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The Palestinian manager of the corner market always greeted me with a smile and had little treats for my children. The Arab man behind the meat counter at the local grocery store began working on my order as soon as he spied me coming up to the counter. The Palestinian owner of the gas station up the road always peeked into the car to see how quickly my infant son was growing and asked how we were handling the "situation."

I am sorry that those hard-working men have been banned from the community. On the other hand, my relatives and neighbors point out to me that those men may be fine people but if one of the terror organizations threatened the lives of their family members, there is no telling what they would do. I don't believe one of the men I know would personally become a human bomb, but if Hamas or Islamic Jihad threatened to kill their wives or children unless they eased an operative's way onto the settlement or into the store, I have a good idea of where their loyalty would lie -- after all, can I be sure I would act any different? Interestingly, most of the day-to-day contact between Israelis and Palestinians took place in the settlements, and those contacts were, for the most part, very good. Only after suicide bombers and gunmen began entering the settlements several months ago did those final contacts break off.

And in their absence, I will admit it: It becomes easier to think the worst of them.

On Sept. 11, My children were running around the house and I was attempting to get dinner started when my husband called me from the Petach Tikvah hospital, where he is a staff internist. "Turn on the news," he urged. I flipped CNN on just in time to see one of the four hijacked airplanes slam into the second tower of the World Trade Center. Before I knew it, my cynical side kicked in -- "Arabs," I nodded to myself.

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