Disillusioned
In contemporary Israeli discourse, the word ‘peace’ is almost a dirty word that elicits sniggers at best, except perhaps on the political fringes. Accordingly, there is not a single person in a position of power in Israeli politics today who is willing to stand behind the equation proudly touted in the 1990s: “land for peace”. That was the logic of the agreement with Egypt and it was supposed to govern the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, too. How did we get to this point, where peace has gone from being the dream of many Israelis to a wedge issue? Not a subject of legitimate debate over the parameters of peace, or the risks versus the odds and so on – but a symbol of something negative and even toxic in the context of election campaigns?