For more than 30 years I have worked to try to make peace between Arabs and Israelis, serving under five different presidents. I have seen highs, partial agreements and even a near agreement in 2000, when the “Clinton parameters” were accepted by the Israeli government and the Palestinian negotiating delegation, but not by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. I have seen lows: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Hamas suicide bombings of cafés, buses and discos that were timed to derail progress that we were making.
But none of the lows produced a reality that is as grim as today. For Israelis, October 7 is a trauma that will take years to recover from; the shattering of their security, combined with the fear that what Hamas did
