is a long collaboration between Shahin’s Palestinian and Israeli supervisors, Moien Kanaan of Bethlehem University in the West Bank and molecular geneticist Karen Avraham of Tel Aviv University. The project got going in 1996, after Avraham learned of Kanaan’s interest in the genetics of hearing loss. “We hit it off,” she recalls. It was a compelling project that drew them together: Palestinian communities suffer high rates of inherited deafness. “You have villages where 10% of the children are born profoundly deaf,” says Avraham. Together with their U.S. partner, geneticist Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington, Seattle, the scientists are tracking down genes involved in inherited deafness. To date, they have identified four genes and have collected data on 59 Israeli and 74 Palestinian families that, they hope, should help pin down further genes. Many Israeli scientists are open to collaboration with Palestinian and other Arab scientists. Take the joint graduate programme between Tel Aviv University and Bethlehem University involving geneticist Mary-Claire King at the University of Washington. This project is looking at the genetic origins of deafness, and the Middle East is ideal for such research, as rich pedigrees are available because marrying close relatives is unusually common. Moreover, Bethlehem researchers have spent time in King’s laboratory, bringing back new skills to Palestine. the three-way collaboration is an example of a successful effort to maintain such constructive contact. This is just one example of partnerships involving Israel, its neighbours and scientists in Europe or the United States. Israel is a research powerhouse that, given an eventual improvement of relations with its neighbours, could rejuvenate science and development in the region through collaboration and training.