Many people over forty did not believe the Berlin Wall would come down in their lifetime. Of course, many people did not believe CDs would replace vinyl LPs, or that Arizona would ever go to the Super Bowl. Not only do these unthinkable things happen - they seem to happen suddenly.

For sixty years, almost no one has believed there can be peace in the Middle East, but the wheel of history is gaining momentum. As we saw with the Iron Curtain, when enough people demand change, change comes.

Two articles in the August 19^th New York Times suggest that peace efforts might be reaching a tipping point. A story by Isabel Kershner notes that Israel's government "had not given final approval for any new housing projects in the West Bank since it took office in late March." Politically, they cannot call it a "freeze," since that is what the US demanded. Instead, they are calling this a "waiting period."

In an Associated Press story, "Israeli President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that the Kremlin has promised to reconsider the planned delivery of powerful air defense missiles to Iran."

Of course, these stories coincided with another news item - the meeting between President Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. They coincided, but were hardly a coincidence.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes, and these small stories are big clues. I think they represent a scratch on the surface of the tip of an iceberg of diplomatic efforts to resolve long-standing disputes between Israel and its neighbors. The writers of Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country, cannily coined the old Vulcan expression, "Only Nixon could go to China." Well, perhaps only Benjamin Netanyahu can go to Palestine, since he may be able to bring conservatives and hardliners no "peace" candidate could sway.

Peace in the Middle East, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, only seemed unthinkable. Now, peace is not only imaginable, but also possibly imminent. And it will change the world dramatically. For example, how will the world's interdependent economies, still dependent on oil, react to peace in the Middle East? I believe we will soon find out, because I have always been optimistic - and now feel even more certain - that we will achieve peace in the Middle East very soon.