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Ami Nahshon, returned last week from a solidarity mission to Israel, said the disillusionment expressed by Israeli Jews ran even deeper than he expected.

The executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay went on a "whirlwind" three-day trip, one of the ongoing missions organized by the United Jewish Communities.

"The public rhetoric was really very discouraging," said the Walnut Creek resident. "Masses of Israelis had come to believe there's a viable peace partner, and that belief has been shattered."

Yet at the same time everyone he spoke to said that peace in some form is the only possible end to the conflict.

"Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs all understand that whenever the dust settles here, and when this current round of intifada ends, whether it's next week, next month or next year, they're still going to have to go back to the negotiating table," said Nahshon, who extended his trip by a few extra days.

The purpose of the trip, according to Nahshon, was "to educate ourselves more so we could come back and be more responsive to questions and concerns of our community, and to let the Israelis know they're not as alone as they feel."

This mission consisted of about 110 people from around the country, mostly lay leaders and community volunteers. Mission participants met with both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.

Nahshon reported similar circumstances to those reported by earlier mission participants. "Tourism has virtually evaporated," he said, with his group being practically the only guests at the Laromme Hotel in Jerusalem.

"Roughly 40 percent of the employees in the tourism industry have been laid off," he said. The only tourists who are still coming, he added, are those with Christian tour groups.

Furthermore, "Israelis themselves are staying home, not from work and school, but from restaurants and movie theaters."

Those who met Nahshon and his group were gracious, he said. "From the hotel workers to the cab drivers to people in the streets to government officials, everyone sincerely welcomed us and appreciated that we were there," he said. "They understood the symbolism of our visit."

Mission participants visited some sites of the recent clashes, what were called "the confrontation lines."

In Lod, the group visited a senior day-care center run by the Joint Distribution Committee with a mixed Arab and Jewish staff, which served both Jewish and Arab clients.

Nahshon spoke to an Israeli Arab social worker. "Clearly, he was guarded about their thoughts and feelings, but most Israeli Arabs did not participate in those riots and are looking forward to finding a way to resume neighborly relations that existed before."

He and his group also met with a Jewish woman who teaches in the Arab city Umm el-Fahm. She had not been to work since the violence broke out, "not because she was afraid, but because her Arab colleagues had advised her not to come," Nahshon said.

But she had returned to work just a few days before the group met with her, and reported that her Arab colleagues went out of their way to make her feel safe and welcome her back.

"This was the first sliver of life returning to normal, but I think it will take a long time," Nahshon said.

At Me Ami, a nearby moshav, Israelis are angry that relations with their neighbors at Umm el-Fahm have so greatly soured, Nahshon said.

"Israeli Jews went to restaurants and shopping there," he said, but "now they don't feel safe there."

Since the violence erupted, residents of Me Ami have built a new fence around the community.

"One of the locals said to us with great bitterness and anger, 'Here we are, Jews in the state of Israel, and we have to build a fence to keep us safe — what's wrong with this picture?'"

In one session, the visitors met with a senior psychologist for the Israel Defense Force. He talked about training soldiers for "what they call 'low-intensity conflict,'" Nahshon said.

"There is elaborate consideration of how they react to stress and a value-based way that protects their own lives and keeps conflict to an absolute minimum," he continued.

One example the group heard from the psychologist was the case of the border police who received the bodies of the two Israeli reservists who had been lynched in Ramallah.

"The border police were so traumatized that the IDF made them take a week off. They didn't want them going back into duty with that kind of anger," Nahshon said.

Nahshon, who is fluent in Hebrew, sat in on a meeting of peace activists. "They expressed disillusionment and worry, and still, they had an even greater resolve to go out in the field and do their work," he said.

"They feel a new commitment to peace and not to let the progress stop. They felt like it was a beginning of a regrouping and rebirthing of the Israeli peace movement."

While the common opinion seemed to be that the situation would most likely worsen before it gets better, Nahshon said everyone felt that eventually, some kind of agreement would be worked out.

"Every Israeli knows it's inevitable," he said.