For years I’ve been writing, broadcasting and commenting on how people meeting can tear down the walls of hatred, suspicion, and ignorance dividing nations. And yet, I find myself surprised each time anew. I’ve already written about how so many of my friends thought I’d lost my mind when I took my family on vacation to Turkey, just two days before the apology and reconciliation between Ankara and Jerusalem.

But I have the best answer for them. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is a picture that I took at the cable car station at Mount Tahtali (also known as Olympos) near Antalya, Turkey. 

It happened just one day after the surprising announcement that Netanyahu and Erdogan had reconciled. The flags of several countries fluttered over the famous site, but what really surprised me was that one of those flags was Israel’s. Yes, an Israeli flag! I started rubbing my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen! How did they manage to put it up so quickly? Not even a day had passed since the phone call, and an Israeli flag was already flying proudly among all the other flags.

Let’s be honest about it. I know Turkey pretty well, and one thing I know for sure is that things don’t happen so quickly here. I also wondered how the Turks were able to erase what I, as an Israeli, believed was an indelible case of anger and hostility. And to do that in just one day! I started thinking of all the various incidents that took place over the past few years, which brought the relationship between these two former friends to their lowest point. I was even more surprised when I asked the woman selling tickets to the site when they had managed to put up the blue-and-white flag, and she told me that it was never taken down. It has been flying here for years, ever since the cableway was built.