Menachem Klein, professor of Political Science of Bar Ilan University, Israel, is the author of Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron (forthcoming, August 2014, Hurst).
Past Jewish-Arabic coexistence in Palestine teaches us that life in common prevails where “The Other” has a human face. Conflict did not always rule people's minds and hearts and it did not shape Jewish–Arab relations from the start.