RAMALLAH, West Bank — My first visit to the big Palestinian city since the start of the current wave of terror ended with an optimistic smile.

On the way home, my escorts thought the fastest way out of the city and through the jammed Qalandia checkpoint would be to catch a ride at the closest point to the Israeli security check. “This is Shlomi and he’s from Israel, could you take him in your car?” my escort asked a random Palestinian woman. Her teenage son sat beside her. To my surprise, her response was “Ahlan wa sahlan” — “Welcome.” Here’s a thought experiment: How would an Israeli woman respond if I asked her, “This is Mohammad from Ramallah, could you take him in your car?”

“I hope you don’t have a suicide belt,” the kind Palestinian driver laughed, and I responded with a big smile. “Listen,” she said, “all that we want is a future for our children. This is my son, Ali, what do I want after all? That he’d have a good life. So come on, tell your people that it’s time they saw us.”

I toured Ramallah on April 23, three days after activists in Bethlehem announced that a Hamas cell had carried out the terror attack on a Jerusalem bus.