Is there any hope for peace in the Middle East? Maybe not, if the political and cultural equation stays the same. Maybe yes, if technology can change the facts on that bloody ground. Just as the telegraph, radio, television and, now, the Internet have brought profound change to the West, so the same changes will come, eventually, to the Arab Middle East. History suggests that telecommunications will push the Arabs, too, in a more prosperous and peaceable direction.

To be sure, not all the changes associated with the Information Age are positive, but from Israel's point of view, even the negative cultural impact of the Net -- - for instance, a narrow and inward preoccupation with the private consumption of everything from pornography to irresponsible journalism -- - would be a plus, as it would lessen Arab political zeal. So the question for Israel is whether such Net-driven shifts will come fast enough to save the Jewish state from decades of chronic violence. And the challenge to friends of Israel in the West is whether far-sighted philanthropy can accelerate that shift. That's where a "Rosetta University" comes in.

The disastrous events of the last few months indicate that neither prime minister Ehud Barak's diplomacy nor prime minister-elect Ariel Sharon's deterrence will bring an end to violence. Put simply, the issue in the Middle East isn't the behavior of the Jews, it's the behavior of the Arabs. Meanwhile, another former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in Washington two weeks ago, predicting that Iran and Iraq will soon have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which will make "what we've experienced for the last few decades child's play."