The Gravediggers of Peace

Last Tuesday, November 4, Hamas announced it would return the body of an Israeli soldier buried in a tunnel north of Gaza City. The 21st corpse out of 28. As part of the ceasefire agreement signed on October 9, seven bodies are still due to be handed over to Israel.

That same day — another November 4 — yet another reminder of the global surge in antisemitism since the Gaza war emerged: Israeli tourists arriving from a cruise ship in Heraklion, Crete, were attacked by pro-Palestinian demonstrators accusing Israel of "genocide." Greek researchers themselves admit: “Antisemitism has now become part of Greece’s social fabric.”

The tragedy unfolding in the Middle East, and its fallout here at home, might have been avoided — had it not been for another November 4, exactly thirty years earlier. On that day in 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist of Yemeni descent, Yigal Amir. There was no commemoration, not even a passing mention — the event now too distant, too forgotten by most of our contemporaries.

And yet! Rabin’s murder — of a great war hero and exceptional statesman — along with a wave of Hamas attacks during that same period, marked the beginning of the downward spiral of violence that would lead us straight to October 7 and the war in Gaza.

Two years before that fateful day, on September 13, 1993, Rabin and Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, under the gaze of Bill Clinton. Peace had finally seemed within reach. The “Declaration of Principles” adopted that day laid out a five-year interim period, with mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinians. It envisioned a Palestinian Authority with an elected council managing both the West Bank and Gaza, and a phased Israeli military withdrawal. The Gaza–Jericho Agreement followed on May 4, 1994, then the Taba Accords on September 28, 1995 — just weeks before Rabin was killed.

This process wasn’t the result of grand international summits like those led by George Bush and James Baker in Madrid and Washington. Rather, it began with secret contacts in January 1992 among a small group: Israeli Deputy Minister Yossi Beilin, two university professors, and three Palestinians close to Arafat — including Mahmoud Abbas, now President of the Palestinian Authority. Their mediator was Johan Jørgen Holst, Norway’s Foreign Minister, who played a key role.

Holst, a friend — he had led the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs while I was at IFRI — never saw his efforts come to full fruition. He died of illness in January 1994. Around that time, I had the chance to speak one-on-one with Rabin, while the talks were still under wraps. I asked if he really believed peace was possible despite the recurring wars and terror. He smiled and replied, “By definition, you only make peace with your enemy.”

When I raised the risk that a traumatized Israeli public might reject his path, he said something that has stayed with me ever since: “You don’t lead a nation by taking its temperature every morning, like a doctor with a patient. You do what must be done.”

The rest is history. After Rabin’s assassination, his successor Shimon Peres quickly lost to Benjamin Netanyahu, who then began his long reign. Today, Netanyahu governs alongside ultra-nationalists like Ben Gvir and Smotrich — ideological heirs to Yigal Amir, Rabin’s killer, and Baruch Goldstein, the man behind the Hebron massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs (29 killed, 125 injured) on February 25, 1994.

On the Palestinian side, Hamas — which unleashed a wave of attacks during the same years (140 dead and hundreds wounded from 1993 to 1996) — also succeeded in killing the peace process. And on October 7, 2023, it “succeeded” again, orchestrating the deadliest anti-Jewish pogrom since World War II.

Today, with Trump’s support, a new peace initiative is taking shape. But beware: the gravediggers of peace are still around. And they haven’t laid down their arms.

Pierre Lellouche – November 5, 2025