It was hardball. Countries were prepared to fight repeatedly for them. Their public opinion congealed around the expectation of war. Peace was simply not seen as a realistic option. Fortunately, things are different now, thanks to 25 years of American-sponsored diplomacy and much else.
People remember, though, and peoples remember.
As Israel has its own occasions to know, to be a victim of aggression burns deeply, the more so when your pain is generally unacknowledged and politically all but invisible. In Israel's case, Arab threats to its viability and its very existence kindled an intense combativeness only now tentatively yielding to the proposition that security can be served by accommodation as well as power. Given the corrected record, it can hardly be without concern for its own ultimate security. Syria and Israel are entitled to have a mutual interest in security measures and in the political and economic initiatives that may by degrees shrink their hostility and make peace possible.