Well, there it was all over yesterday's news: the furniture store in north London that offered special bargains at its opening at midnight. Thousands turned up. Cars were abandoned. There were scuffles in the queue. People were crushed. Some needed medical attention. Ambulances rushed to the scene. After half an hour the store had to be closed. It's amazing what we'll do for a bargain.

It reminded me of the story Al Jolson used to tell. One day he bought a magnificent overcoat for his father. It cost $200, but he knew his father would be horrified at the cost, so he told him he got it as a bargain. Ten dollars. Three days later his father called him. You know that coat you bought me for ten dollars. Yes Dad, do you like it. Like it? I just sold it for twenty. Get me a dozen more.

Oh, if only we knew the real cost of things. Of over-consumption. Of ethnic conflict. Of terror and violence. Of the lack of human rights in so many parts of the world. Of a global economy in which some hardly know what to do with their money while others starve. If only life were like a furniture store and we could persuade people what a bargain peace, freedom and justice really are.

But of course life isn't like a furniture store, because It's one thing to queue for six hours for a bargain sofa; quite another to begin a process that may take a generation.

Earlier this week at Sharm al Sheikh Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed on a ceasefire, to bring to an end four and a half years of violence since the Oslo peace process broke down. What a price has been paid by both sides: the dead, the injured, the bereaved; years of fear and mistrust, anger and grief, poverty and unemployment and loss of hope. If only the key figures then knew what we know now, that the cost of peace is high; but the cost of the alternatives is so much higher. Peace really is a bargain. But it takes long term thinking to see it.

If only we would lift our sights from today to the far horizons of the future, we would see how expensive it is to fight enemies instead of building bridges of coexistence and trust. Turning an enemy into a friend is an even better bargain than yesterday's furniture. Would that we were willing to queue for that as well.

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