And we got good at it too good. Instead of raising our voices in support of peace, we began mourning the peace process itself. Five years after Oslo, the prospects for real peace seem grim. The collective excitement shared by Americans and Israelis alike as Rabin and Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn is no longer palpable. But we ve mourned for long enough.
Catharsis wears thin after a while, leaving nothing but a debilitating grief.
With the Clinton Administration s attention increasingly diverted and Netanyahu continuing to stall, it s time for us to snap out of our pathos and actively promote peace. Because when it comes to thinking about the peace process, history has given us an advantage over our parents. The Israel we know is the Middle East s major military player, no longer the region s victim struggling to avoid total destruction. Their image is of heroic soldiers praying at the recaptured Western Wall. In the 1980s and 1990s, Israel achieved unprecedented physical strength, but it sacrificed its claim to be the heroic, morally superior, underdog.