In Matters of Peace, Israel Reacted Rationally to Repeated Rebuffs

By: David Gerstman May 1, 2026

Recently two periodicals published articles asking or telling us where Israel “went wrong.” Each explains how Israel lost the support it once had. However, one thing these articles have in common is that they create narratives based on only part of the story. Worse, by not providing a complete picture, they are telling a false history.

Edward Luce, U.S. national editor of the Financial Times (FT) published one such analysis recently. In a lament titled “Why America is falling out of love with Israel,” Luce describes how Israel has lost its way in the eyes of the American public.

One sentence in Luce’s introductory paragraph illustrates the problem with his analysis. Luce wrote that Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin’s “assassination by an Israeli extremist prompted the country’s rightward turn and the dawn of the age of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Over 13 years passed between the assassination of Rabin and the beginning of Netanyahu’s second administration. That’s an extended “prompting.” During that period, someone other than Netanyahu – Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert – was Prime Minister for three quarters of the time.

In a similar vein, Felicia Schwartz reported in Politico (“Israel’s center wants Democrats back. It may not have the cards,” Apr. 30, 2026) about efforts by, and hopes of, Israel’s opposition to regain bipartisan support in the United States.

Schwartz explained how “Israel’s public has become more conservative.” She wrote that the political change was “driven by demographic change, the collapse of a peace process in the early 2000s and the trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.”

Schwartz added in a couple more details than Luce did but still failed to produce a reasonable summary of what happened in the Middle East between 1995, when Rabin was assassinated, and 2009, when Netanyahu was re-elected. A review is in order.

After Rabin’s assassination there was a very strong backlash against Netanyahu. The assassination boosted the popularity of Shimon Peres, Rabin’s successor. And the peace process continued. In the seven weeks after Rabin’s murder, Israel removed troops from all remaining major Palestinian population centers. In February 1996, three months after the assassination, Peres led Netanyahu by double digits.

However, an unprecedented wave of terror – four suicide attacks during February and March 1996 – boosted Netanyahu in the polls. In the end, Netanyahu won narrowly, but it was hardly the start of Israel’s “rightward turn.” Netanyahu served for three years until he was voted out. One of the perceptions was that Netanyahu had not done enough for peace. Barak’s election led to a new push for peace that resulted in the July 2000 summit at Camp David.

In May 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. The IDF had been in southern Lebanon since 1982 when it invaded to drive out the PLO.

Then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered peace to Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, in July 2000. Arafat refused to accept the deal.

In September 2000 Arafat launched a terror campaign, often referred to as the second intifada. During the five-year period of violence, marked by frequent suicide bombings of buses and public gatherings, Palestinian terrorists killed over 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.

In October 2000, just five months after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah kidnapped and killed three Israeli soldiers. Though the United Nations had a videotape of the attack, they initially denied its existence.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. About 8,000 Israelis had been living in Gaza, which Israel had captured from Egypt in 1967.

The next year, Hezbollah killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two others in a cross-border attack. This launched a 34-day war in which forty-three civilians and 117 soldiers were killed. The war ended with a ceasefire codified in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. The resolution demanded that Hezbollah give up its arms and stop operating south of the Litani River.

In August 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a peace deal. Abbas refused to accept it.

And in December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in response to repeated Hamas rocket attacks and other terror activities.

This isn’t a complete list, but there’s a pattern. Between 1995 and 2009, on three different fronts – the West Bank, Gaza, and in the north – Israel offered peace, or withdrew from territory or both, to achieve peace. Its peace offers were rejected, and its withdrawals gave its enemies opportunities to arm themselves unimpeded.

Whether one characterizes the change in Israel’s outlook as a “rightward turn” or becoming “more conservative,” it misses many details. Contemporary polls reflect easy narratives and recent events. It’s easy (and cynical) to judge Israel on the war in Gaza or Palestinian statehood, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t account for the cumulative effect of decades of disappointment, betrayal, and tragedy.

A March 1999 poll found that over 60 percent of Israelis found the Palestinian Authority to be a “genuine” partner for peace. However, a Jerusalem Post poll taken after Arafat rejected Barak’s peace offer in July 2000 showed a reversal. Even though 59 percent of those polled felt that Barak was correct in negotiating with Arafat at Camp David, now 60% said that they don’t believe that the Palestinians truly want peace. Nonetheless, another poll at that time showed that 58 percent of Israelis but only 33 percent of Palestinians believed that permanent peace was possible. The Israeli optimism is striking especially in light of the Israeli offer and the Palestinian rejection. A series of polls can tell a story, but no single poll can explain decades of events.

What Israel has experienced over the past 33 years – since the beginning of the Oslo Accords – is that it has given up land and offered peace. Instead of bringing peace, these efforts have led to greater violence and more hostility. To make matters worse, those who insist that Israel compromise don’t give it credit for trying when the other side says “no” or responds with terror. They explain that Israel didn’t do enough and must do more.

Being hesitant to try more diplomacy when the diplomacy isn’t reciprocated, or it backfires, isn’t a matter of becoming more conservative or moving to the right. It’s a rational response to a negative outcome.

Comments are closed.