Is There A Chance for Peace in the Near East?

Back in 1989 or 1990, I flew from New York to Paris, rented a car and drove through the Pyrenees Mountains to get to Spain. My specific destination in Spain was Barajas Airport outside of Madrid, where I would grab another flight. In fact, this was the first leg of a trip which would take me to my ultimate destination, which was Israel, but I had a couple of extra days, so I decided to take a somewhat indirect route between New York and Tel Aviv.

Driving from Paris to Madrid usually means taking the superhighway which runs from Bordeaux and crosses into Spain between Bayonne and San Sebastian, but I decided instead to take a back road through Saint-Palais on the French side of the mountains which would get me across the Spanish border at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

Why did I take this winding, narrow route through the Pyrenees? Because in Saint-Palais there was one of Michelin’s three-star restaurants, and why not make a tough drive up and down steep hills in order to consumer a good, French meal?

Somewhere south of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port I crossed the border and was now in Spain. How did I know I had left one country and gone into another? Because the occasional road sign was now in Spanish, rather than in French. The border itself had no markings at all, no border guards, no passport check, no nothing which told me…