A President's Inconvenient Palestinian Facts

History matters. And perhaps, by understanding it better, we can all help move closer to a peaceful reality that has eluded us for far too long.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak shaking hands with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, joined by U.S. President Bill Clinton, in 1999 (photo: Photographs of the White House Photograph Office/Wikipedia)

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This is a guest essay written by Michael Golden, co-author of the international bestseller, “Ethical Tribing.”

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Young people are smart.

I’ve experienced it myself while teaching college students, and watching their passion for a cause can be genuinely inspiring. There’s an infectious energy in their activism, a raw desire to make the world a better place.

This idealism, while commendable, can sometimes overlook the complexities of global issues, boiling them down to overly simplistic narratives that fail to grasp the full scope of reality. The desire to act, though noble, is not always rooted in a comprehensive understanding of history or nuance.

But I’ve also written that “smart” can be a very subjective standard. And when it comes to complex, deep-rooted international conflicts, knowing history is a lot more important than being smart or having heart. Intelligence and empathy are valuable, but without historical context, they risk being misdirected.

If a person is advocating on behalf of another people or country — but doesn’t know or refuses to understand the history — their cries will not get them very far. It’s the equivalent of trying to treat symptoms without understanding the disease. History isn’t just a backdrop; it’s the foundation upon which any meaningful advocacy must stand.

Twenty-five years ago, on the very first day I ever spent in Israel, I sang Hatikvah with other Jews at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. It was a moment filled with profound emotion, a reminder of the resilience and unity that had sustained the Jewish people through generations of hardship and persecution.

On the very same afternoon, President Bill Clinton was meeting one last time in Oslo, Norway with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The contrast between those two events was striking — one steeped in celebration and hope, the other in the gritty, arduous task of diplomacy.

Barak had succeeded Yitzhak Rabin, who had been assassinated by an Israeli Right-wing radical four years earlier — almost to the day. That murderer, who shall not be named here, shot Rabin after he had signed off on a historic peace framework between his beloved country — which he’d defended on the front lines for decades — and the Palestinians.

Rabin understood that peace required courage, that it meant making painful concessions and extending trust in places where mistrust had long festered. He took a big risk, and he paid the ultimate price for it. His assassination was not just the loss of a leader; it was a seismic blow to the fragile process of peace itself.

A few days ago, President Clinton spoke publicly about the fact that at the very end of his presidency, Arafat did an about-face and turned down the historic peace deal that was finally on the table. Clinton has explained before that if the Oslo Accords¹ had been signed, they “would have given the Palestinians a state on 96 percent of the West Bank and 4 percent of Israel, and they got to choose where the 4 percent of Israel was.”

The deal was unprecedented in its scope and generosity, reflecting years of painstaking negotiations.

The Palestinians would also have a capital in East Jerusalem. It was everything that Arafat had been negotiating for since the process had begun in 1994. But he said “no.” Clinton, who was in “the room where it happened,” was devastated: “The only time Yasser Arafat didn’t tell me the truth was when he promised he was going to accept the peace deal that we had worked out.”

In Clinton’s most recent interview, he said that when he talks to young people today who are protesting on behalf of the Palestinians — and tells them these facts of history — they are “shocked.” He elaborated in his New York Times Dealbook interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin:

“All [young people] know that a lot more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis. But they don’t know the history behind that. I tell them what Arafat walked away from, and they, like, can’t believe it. You can’t complain 25 years later when the doors weren’t all still open, and all the possibilities weren’t still there.”

There’s a deeper lesson here if one looks not only at that history from 25 years ago but what has happened since and what is happening right now. And I pray that young people who truly care about the Palestinians’ future will take a very clear look at it. History doesn’t exist in isolation. Each decision, each moment of missed opportunity, reverberates through the decades, shaping the contours of the present in ways that are often invisible to those who lack the context.

Because Arafat declined peace at that last moment, the strife between Palestinians and Israelis continued. Many would say it worsened. Even when Israel got out of Gaza in 2005 and left Gazans to govern themselves, they elected Hamas into power.

For the purposes of this essay, the only thing that matters is that Hamas in no way wants any kind of peaceful coexistence with Israel. It is a nonstarter. Hamas’s charter is explicit about its goals — the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamist state. That kind of absolutism leaves little room for dialogue or compromise.

If you have a neighbor who is so angry or ideologically bent that he only wants to keep attacking you — instead of negotiating a better relationship — what choice do you have but to attack back? To defend? It’s a rhetorical question. Your neighbor has given you no choice. Defense becomes not just a right, but a necessity for survival. And this, fundamentally, is the position Israel finds itself in time and again.

What so many of the protesters today do not understand is that there are millions of Jews who also want a better life for Palestinians. As Clinton explained, the Israelis who were attacked near the Gaza border on October 7th were among those who have been most supportive of a Palestinian state. These were not hardliners; they were people committed to peace, to coexistence, and to finding a way forward despite the challenges.

And yet, they became targets precisely because their vision of peace threatens the extremist narrative.

If you take a look at the countries in the Middle East that have made peace or normalized relations with Israel, you’ll see states that have taken a pragmatic approach that will best economically benefit their peoples: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.

None of these nations have a regime in power that disallows Israelis as a people. This trend toward normalization reflects a growing recognition that peace is not just desirable but necessary for economic and social progress.

But Hamas does. It has no interest in any kind of coexistence with Israel. It wants Israel obliterated. Gone.

Because of that fact, young protesters would be well-served to observe that Israel isn’t going anywhere. And every minute that Hamas remains in power — over plenty of Palestinians who actually desire a more peaceful future — is more time wasted. And more violent conflict.

Folks who sincerely want a better life for Palestinians would be far better served by carrying protest signs that call for Hamas to free the Palestinians. Give them a chance at something different. Demand leadership that genuinely cares about the people under its governance and works toward improving their daily lives, not perpetuating endless cycles of violence.

They came so close 25 years ago. History matters. And perhaps, by understanding it better, we can all help move closer to a peaceful reality that has eluded us for far too long.

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1. A pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s