It is agonizingly rare to find a positive headline emanating from the West Bank, which recently saw a mosque burned and graffiti spray-painted on the walls in Hebrew, including the words “revenge” and “price tag,” referring to in-kind reprisal of Jews against Palestinians for attacks. It was the third Palestinian mosque to be torched, allegedly by settlers, in the past year. But the continuation of the story did not get much additional focus. A few days later, some prominent West Bank rabbis visited that same mosque, bringing Korans to replace the ones burned by the vandals.

Leading this effort was Rabbi Menachem Froman, chief rabbi of the settlement of Tekoa. He is a veteran in interfaith efforts and has even conducted face-to-face dialogue in past years with religious leaders of the Hamas Islamic fundamentalist group. (He has been heavily criticized as naive by some colleagues.) Joining him last week in the Hebron-area village of Beit Fajar were the American-born Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, head of the prominent Har Etzion Yeshiva and the American-born Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat.

Their presence, for certain, counters the one of American-born Jewish radicals being at the forefront of extremism in the area. Understandably, but sadly, the rabbis were under heavy security during the visit. One silver lining on that dark cloud is that according to media reports they were guarded jointly by Israeli soldiers and Palestinian policemen. For their to be future co-existence initiatives, the two security services will have to work hand-in-hand on operations.

As Rabbi Shlomo Brin, also from the Har Etzion Yeshiva, said, “Our goal is to share our horror at the attack of the mosque and to clearly state that this is not the way of the Torah or the Jewish way. This act does nothing for the settlements; it is morally and religiously wrong and is offensive to its core. This is not how we educated our children. Islam is not a hostile religion, even if we have a dispute with some of its followers.”

May his words ring throughout the Land of Israel – and be echoed by Jews and Arabs alike.