In misery, there is always hope.

Some of you may be aware that we're presently in the tail end of ramadan, a holy month for muslims. Some of you may also know a little something about the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest place* in Islam and a site of considerable devotion during ramadan. You may even be aware that, given that al-Aqsa is in Jerusalem and that the Israelis are frankly a little afraid of letting hordes of muslims in, there's been a serious effort to prevent young muslim men from coming to pray. The fear is that they may combine their trip with a little terrorism, much like we combine conference travel with tourism. The effort to bar their entry, however, has brought its own share of problems:

Last Friday Israeli forces used tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse Palestinians whose anger and frustration at entry restrictions erupted in disturbances at several checkpoints around Jerusalem.

Yet, in all that, what you probably haven't seen is the best contender for Picture of the Year that will never, ever, win a prize:



After everything that's happened, I am struck by the simple humanity of a muslim man helping an Israeli soldier back to his feet.

Any religion that argues that man is inherently evil has clearly, in my view, failed to grasp who, and what, we are:

Beautiful.

* You've gotta love a religion that can actually rank the holiness of locations with that much detail.

As a side note: Special thanks to the Total Drek Middle-Eastern Correspondent for passing this along.