Path to peace

The Tel Aviv promenade is probably the best known beach front in Israel. Facing the Mediterranean Sea, it's a year-round tourist attraction. Israelis, for reasons known only to themselves, assume that come October the sea is "closed" and are loth to bathe there (unless they're Russian immigrants, of course, but that's another story). The Chich Promenade – named after one of the city's most popular mayors - Shlomo "Chich" Lahat, (you'd have to ask his army buddies where he picked up that sobriquet) - follows the contours of the seafront with a wide swathe of sandy beaches to one side and numerous cafés, bars, ice cream parlours and hotels on the other. Visitors can spend long hours here, swimming, sunbathing, fressing and walking, all within a space of a few kilometres.

Now, at the southern end, starting from the Andromeda Rock (a name probably adopted from a Greek legend transmitted by passing sailors), a new promenade starts at the edge of Jaffa's ancient port and suddenly becomes something else entirely. In place of the former dumping ground for the city's rubbish, the municipality transformed tons of refuse into landfill and thence into a green covered landscape of rolling hills and pathways that snake their way between the brooding sea and the lines of houses fronting the Aj'ami Quarter. Many of these houses are either new or refurbished in harmony with the panoramic view.

This past summer, Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv's energetic mayor, organised an official opening of the project that had taken years to realise. It was a singular moment in the life of the country's largest urban area. Jews and Arabs came together in a celebration of a shared space, singing, dancing and playing music for each other. Huldai was among the speakers who stressed how the new promenade symbolised not only human ingenuity - in turning this rubbish dump into pastoral beauty - but also as a tangible proof that Jews and Arabs could live, work and play together.

A final touch that characterised this remarkable event were the kites that everyone was offered as they entered the celebration's precincts. These fragile toys seemed to suggest that if people could only transcend their differences, then everyone could literally fly free as a kite.