On the afternoon of May 10, some 150 people gathered for “Palestinian-Israel Dialogue” in the conference hall of the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. For the most part, the conference participants identified with the hard core of the Israeli left, including Meretz members and supporters of the Geneva Initiative, which organized the event. They had come to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the wake of the decision to open the US Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14 and the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. The participants paid rapt attention to Elias Zananiri, the deputy chair of the Palestinian Committee for Interaction with the Israeli Society, Meretz Chair Tamar Zandberg and former party chairman Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of the Geneva Initiative. Listening to them, they were filled with hope.
