On the way back from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion airport following a few weeks in Israel in 2016 I settled in expecting to doze off. As usual it was 1 a.m., and I was pretty well done in from nonstop travel. But every taxi cab driver, Jewish or Arab, wants to talk, and I always learn something from these nonacademic conversations. Before long I was hearing things I was not eager to know, but it brought home the human costs of nearly a century of conflict.

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