The Rabin-Arafat handshake, 20 years later

Sept. 13 marks the 20th anniversary of one of the more notorious handshakes in recent history: that between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, coaxed by President Clinton, and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat in the White House Rose Garden.

Editor then of Washington Jewish Week, I’d been invited to join a throng of witnesses to this eruption of Arab-Israeli comity. Arafat having as much civilian Jewish blood on his hands as any criminal since 1945, I sent a reporter instead.