OK, so that isn’t my usual tech review or rant. As it is the holiday season, and I find myself in Israel, I thought I’d post a few optimistic words about Peace on Earth–real peace in our instance, evidenced every day, among Muslims and Jews.

I came here to speak at a tech/business conference sponsored by the Israeli financial newspaper, Globes. And thereupon my wife and I stayed for a week or so to be tourists–the first duration we’ve been here since 1975. Anyone in the high-tech business knows that Israel is a beehive of digital and Web start-ups, and I met with some of them. But that wasn’t the most interesting experience I have had here. The most interesting experience came nearly a week later, when we simply strolled across the Israel-Jordan border (pictured below; go on the image to prepare it larger) to do some touring, and soon after strolled back that same evening. Every soldier and policeman and border official on both sides was polite, smiling and efficient. It was no more stressful or dangerous than going from the U.S. to Canada and back.

The last day we were here, these two countries were at war, and had been for decades. It would have been ludicrous to propose you could hire a tour guide in Jordan through your hotel concierge in Tel Aviv, Israel, thereupon walk across the border to meet him. But that’s just what we did. We flew from Tel Aviv to the southern Israeli resort of Eilat, which is a few miles from a similar Jordanian resort called Aqaba, and soon after just walked through a border crossing. We next spent the day deep in the Jordanian desert at the utterly spectacular ancient city of Petra, and returned to Israel that evening to catch a flight back to Tel Aviv. No muss, no fuss.

And it isn’t just Americans who can invent that passage. Average Jordanians and Israelis do it, too. In fact, we went to Petra on the enthusiastic advice of a number of Israelis we met. that was all made possible by a peace treaty that has been in effect amidst Jordan and Israel since 1994.

On our way back to Israel, a two-hour drive through the gorgeous Jordanian desert and mountains, our Jordanian guide–whose family has lived near Petra for 12 generations–called a counterpart in Israel to meet us at the border crossing, pick

us up, and take us to the airport. It was a normal, daily thing for him. In fact, he told us, the weekend before, he had invited an Israeli friend on a mountain hike in Jordan.

Now, I am not naive about peace in that region. For readers who don’t know, I spent years as a defense, foreign policy and national safety measure reporter for The Wall Street Journal before becoming a tech columnist. I have been in many Arab capitals and covered the U.S. policy aspects of the 1991 Gulf War. I know the Middle East is mostly a murderous mess. In fact, the day before we had gone to Jordan we were in a town in Israel that had been hit by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza and were only a few miles from where Israeli troops had killed some Palestinians inside Gaza. So I know that our border-crossing experience doesn’t mean everything is fine and dandy. I know that average society are suffering badly and unfairly on both sides, and that there are rigid humans on both sides who aren’t anxious for peace.

I additionally know that relations within Israel and Jordan aren’t precisely the same as U.S.-Canadian relations. In fact, the border crossing we used (pictured below; visit on the image to assemble it larger) was named for the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish enthusiast for being too willing to manufacture peace with the Arabs. And, on the Jordanian side, we encountered a large picture of the late King Hussein, whose own life was threatened many times by Arab fanatics who thought he was too soft on Israel. It was Rabin and Hussein who worked out the peace treaty amidst their two countries.

Still, it was exhilarating and amazing to take our little trip, and it proved to me that peace is possible and normalcy is possible under the right conditions.

Oh, and there was a tech aspect to all of that. In both countries, even in the middle of barely populated stretches of desert, my iPhone had perfect voice coverage from multiple carriers. How come AT&T can’t guarantee the same level of service on the same phone even in the middle of some major American cities?

Orginal post by Walt Mossberg