In 1978, Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin. Shortly afterwards, Sadat was assassinated by an Egyptian fanatic. In 1993 a new window for peace opened. Under the auspices of the United States, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, then considered a major terrorist, signed the Oslo Accords with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
In a historic scene, Arafat and Rabin shook hands in Washington. The following year, 1994, they also won the Nobel Peace Prize. Influenced by the image, Israeli writer Amos Oz summed it all up when he warned: “The work of peacemakers does not end with the signing of the treaty. Both sides need it to defuse the emotional traps and eliminate stereotypes created by many years of fear and hatred. The following year, Rabin was assassinated by a fanatical Israeli.
Months after Rabin’s assassination, farright leader Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Israel’s prime minister. There followed two consequences that fell like a tombstone on the peace efforts.
The terrorist group Hamas carried out a series of suicide attacks that killed hundreds of civilians in major Israeli cities. And Netanyahu encouraged a continued expansion of Israeli settlements, raising Palestinian expectations about Israel’s willingness to embrace the idea of two states, the only solution that can lead to peace.
The Netanyahu government’s actions had two paradoxical effects. They undermined the power of the Palestinian Authority, a provisional selfgoverning entity founded in 1994. At the same time, they strengthened Hamas. The group made the Israeliisolated Gaza Strip the epicenter of terrorist actions, culminating in the heinous attack on October 7th.
The Middle East teetered on the edge of a vacuum for so long that the international community became accustomed to cultivating the impression that the abyss, like the hell of religious eschatology, was more of a cautionary fiction than the reality of crisis. The fiction became reality through the Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s counteroffensive.