Palestinian American scholar Edward Said has said, “No cause, no god, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents.” What is the significance of going through a checkpoint in Palestine? The need to know took me 14 years ago, to the Levant (ascribed to the east of the Mediterranean), or the Mashriq, as in Arabic. What took me there was my quest for peace. Could I find it hidden somewhere in the tattered Israel-Palestine relations? At the Israel Consulate in Mumbai, I met with relevant people with my proposal of creating a special Israel-Palestine Peace issue for Gallerie...