Two further points on Israel. A couple nights ago CNN replayed a Larry King Live interview with Yitzhak Rabin, Arafat and King Hussein. Watching that interview brought home just how much was lost when Rabin was assassinated a few months later in November 1995. Looking back, I think it was clearly the pivotal moment in the entire peace process, the entire decade of the 1990s for the Israelis and the Palestinians.
After that came Shimon Peres’ prime ministership. As much as I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for Peres, he’s never enjoyed the deep trust of the Israeli electorate, certainly not the level of trust needed in late 1995 and 1996. Then came the adventurer and opportunist Netanyahu, who had fanned the fires before Rabin’s death and proceeded to further sabotage the negotiations while in office.
Netanyahu’s folly led to his downfall and the election of Barak. But Barak was no Rabin and in any case perhaps too much had already happened by the time he was elected in 1999. In any case, the fatal mistake of Arafat and the Palestinians — turning down the offer at Camp David in 2000 — led to the historical accident of Sharon. And here we are.
Perhaps only Rabin had the toughness, the vision, the credibility and (perhaps most important) the innate skepticism about the peace process itself which made success possible.
It was a profound loss.
The second point: Barak’s OpEd in the Times yesterday seems the best part of wisdom and realism anybody is voicing at the moment.
