On December 24, 1942, the Jewish boxing champion Barney Ross and Reverend Fred Gehring—a Catholic priest from Brooklyn, NY—organized an ecumenical midnight mass for Christian marines in the midst of the battle of Guadalcanal. Ross, whose European-born father had wanted him to be a talmudic scholar, had retired from boxing before the war began. Having enlisted in the Marines, he struck up a close friendship with Gehring, who was in his unit. Ron Grossman tells the story:

In his first interview after leaving office, the former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, admitted that he had erred in believing that Israel could come to some sort of accord with Hamas. In his own words: