Diligent readers of Ariel will realise that the present edition is again devoted to the theme of Israel and Islam, as was the previous one. We make no apologies for this. The importance of the topic and the amount of material we have accumulated, led us to realise very quickly that we could not do justice to the theme in one issue alone. If truth be told, we could probably not do justice to the theme in ten issues.
As we pointed out in the Editor's Introduction to the last issue, our fate here in Israel is inextricably linked to the Moslem hinterland in which we live. As we write these words, the nation is engaged in a protracted and difficult process of negotiations and contacts overt and covert and at different levels with some of our Arab neighbours - with the Palestinians, with Lebanon , with Syria, and with others, as well as the ongoing dialogue - sometimes more difficult, sometimes easier with the countries with whom we are at peace with Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.
There is no easy or quick solution to the problems that have plagued this part of the Middle East for generations. However, we can only hope that cultural contacts, of which there are already not a few, will pave the way in due course for political settlements, that will allow all the countries of the region, once and for all, to turn their creative efforts to living peacefully with each other and eventually making the words of the prophet Isaiah come true speedily in our days:
For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
The mountain and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.
(Ch. 55: 12)
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war any more.
(Ch.2: 4)
Jerusalem, March, 1998
Asher Weill