Etgar Keret

Israeli writer

Most of the scenarios I think of for Israel are horribly pessimistic. It's possible that an Iranian nuclear bomb will fall on us. Or, that the jihad of Islam will sweep across the Middle East. And, there's also the scenarios in which Messianic Jewish movements take over Israel turning it into a fundamentalist state, [or the] possibility that a civil war will break out between secular Jews of Russian origin and the supporters of Shas, the ultra-religious party [of Jews of Middle Eastern origin].

But from all scenarios, I chose the positive one, in which the Middle East conflict won't end in the "peace of the brave" promised by leaders such as Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat; it will be a more realistic and truthful peace, with no glamour and no halo. It will be the peace of the exhausted, a peace chosen by all who bear the bloody wounds of this conflict and now are spent from fighting. It won't be a liberal, daring peace, but a peace as a last chance for survival, one that will guarantee the children of the region the decent livelihood and relative security we can not promise them now.