On most days, politics did not figure prominently in my friendship with Ibtisam. We were not naive—it just had little to do with how we felt about each other. Granted, Ibtisam gave me a key chain with a Palestinian flag adjoining a tiny map of Palestine on one side, charting out the very same territory that is Israel, and an engraving of the Al-Aqsa Mosque etched on the other. But I was not bothered by those national symbols. I firmly support a two-state solution. So why should her patriotism ruffle me?

There was only one occasion when the sad reality that our countries are de facto at war threatened to thwart our friendship. During Operation Pillar of Defense, the military conflagration between Israel and Hamas in November 2012, I hesitated before picking up the phone to call Ibtisam. Would she want to hear from me at a time when rockets were raining down on Israel and airstrikes were pounding Gaza?

I paced the house. Then I dialed.

“I’m so glad to hear your voice!” Ibtisam said on the other end. I could tell she was smiling. Her relief echoed mine. I held back tears.

“Ruti, we are not the ones at war,” she added. “It’s our governments, not us.”

***

This fall, nearly three years after Ibtisam and I first met, an opportunity arose to do something that would hardly be unusual most anywhere else: to bring our families together in a safe and neutral place. When Ibtisam and Ahmed secured permits to do glucose-tolerance tests at Augusta Victoria’s diabetes clinic, I drove the 20 minutes from my home in West Jerusalem with two of my three sons and my mother, an old-timer Jerusalemite visiting from Michigan, to keep them company. Their three kids—Mahmoud, 16, Aya, 15, and Yusuf, 13—did not have permits and had to stay home.

These sorts of family gatherings ought to be ordinary in today’s Israel/Palestine. But they are not. So it felt special to all of us.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Ibtisam ran to greet us.

“Ruti!”

We hugged.

After a round of introductions, we walked across the grassy grounds to our favorite picnic table, which was shaded by oversized pine trees. We always loved to exchange gifts; if we could not linger in each other’s homes, at least our presents could. That day was no exception. I had brought makeup for Ibtisam and Aya. Ibtisam had brought us baskets filled with towels, mugs, and silver-wrapped chocolate triangles and squares.

Whatever shyness my sons initially felt evaporated upon the sight of sweets. Yuval and Eitan stuffed their mouths, muttering “thank you” in between bites. Then they raced to the playground with my mom, affording Ibtisam and me private catch-up time. Ahmed stood aside, talking to a doctor.

We gabbed about our children, her stepson Muhammad’s engagement, health insurance, and car payments. I folded down the waistband of my yoga pants to show Ibtisam two small red scars, one shaped like an X, the other like a Y—souvenirs of my recent prophylactic oophorectomy.