Ever since 1977 when Egypt’s Anwar Sadat made his historic visit to Israel to seal with his body his soulful recognition that Israel had a right to exist, the world’s conception of the struggles in the Middle East changed. It was no longer a question of whether Israel would survive. It became a question of accommodation.
This is, of course, an overly optimistic and simplistic gloss. But Sadat was the first Arab leader to establish a new frame of reference. The new context, the new reality he helped found was based on the ideas of hope, coexistence, and — ultimately — peace.
That frame of reference survived his assassination by Islamist extremists in 1981. And it has been sorely tested many times since — as it was after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a right-wing Israeli extremist. But it was never destroyed. There is not a chance that Hezbollah today can destroy Israel, although it wants to. What it can do, and is doing, is destroy hope for a lasting peace in the region — the very hope Condoleezza Rice is seeking but fewer today believe is achievable. Hope nourishes. Despair destroys. It’s a stark equation, but there it is.
There is no doubt that the United States is going to have to intervene diplomatically even more strongly than it already has. There is little doubt that Israel is — sooner or later — going to have to make accommodations.
But those facts are asides. The central fact, as it appears to us at this moment, is that the forces of darkness are gaining currency in the world of public opinion, and that could be as threatening in the long run as any military action is in the present.
The reality is that there appears to be no acceptable and achievable outcome. So the best we can hope for is a peace that keeps hope alive. That may be a small victory, an almost negligible victory, but even that could prove to be an irrecoverable defeat for Hezbollah.
