Shortly after he returned from the United States, Mr. Ibrahim opened the elegant Abu Ghosh restaurant, starting a trend that has considerably helped the economy of the town. Abu Ghosh, whose working people used to solely commute to factories every day, now has a full row of locally owned restaurants.

On Saturdays, the town is jammed with secular Israeli Jewish tourists. For most of the tourists, it is their only contact with Arabs at all, inside or outside Israel. But most do not come for political reasons; almost every restaurant in nearby Jerusalem is closed for the Sabbath.

Still, Mr. Ibrahim, who shmoozes in Hebrew with his customers, thinks of it as a kind of peace industry. And he points to the Israeli-American-Palestinian negotiations that have taken place at his restaurant as evidence that he has created a kind of halfway house between worlds.

''I like to think that I have put Abu Ghosh on the map as a symbol of peace,'' he said.

''We Israeli Arabs should be the bridge of peace. Israelis have to have peace with us first, then they can think about Lebanon and Syria.''

Abu Ghosh has always had a strange standing in the Israeli Arab world. It was seen as a ''collaborator's village,'' because the mukhtar, or leader, of the clan who lived there made a decision 50 years ago not to fight the Israelis in order to preserve the town.

Superficially it looks better off than most Israeli Arab towns, but Mr. Ibrahim said that four or five families are squeezed into almost every house. The town, half the size it used to be, is hemmed in by a highway and Jewish developments. Now, when someone is tempted to sell land to an outsider, Mr. Ibrahim rushes to buy it first.

''I love buying land, especially in Israeli Arab villages,'' he said.

Part of Mr. Ibrahim's goal has been to reconnect Abu Ghosh with the Israeli Arab world, to make it clear that their problems are shared, that ''we are brothers.'' His Abu Ghosh Foundation finances projects for Israeli Arabs throughout the country, from youth leadership programs and technology training to prenatal care and direct cash grants to cover the medical costs of the very poor.