I would like to be remembered as the protector of Israel. That’s enough for me.

—Benjamin Netanyahu, 2016

MALE NEWSREADER:

Women and children taken hostage. Young people at a music festival, murdered in cold blood by the radical Islamic terrorists of Hamas.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Hamas unleashes a shocking assault on Israel leaving hundreds dead.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The barbarism and the savagery stunning mankind.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Hamas taking hostages.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Israel responding saying Hamas will bear the consequences of the attack.

NARRATOR:

It was 11 days after Hamas’ attack on Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, was at Ben Gurion Airport to meet the American president.

NIR HEFETZ, Former Netanyahu aide:

You could see that he was lost. He was lost. He understands that this is a huge, huge tragedy for Israel, but also for him as a part of Israel’s history.

DENNIS ROSS, Middle East envoy, 1993-2001:

Bibi Netanyahu has always sort of prided himself on being Mr. Security. So for the worst day ever, for the most severe suffering of fatalities and casualties in Israel itself, for this to occur on his watch, it is a tragedy.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

He is now descending the stairs.

PETER BAKER, The New York Times:

We see President Biden come down the stairs from Air Force One onto the tarmac, and he heads straight for Netanyahu, and he wraps his arms around him.

NARRATOR:

It was an expression of America’s solidarity with Israel, but it also carried a warning.

PETER BAKER:

It’s called a bear hug, but, in Hebrew a bear hug can mean wrapping your arms around somebody in order to restrain them as much as to comfort them. And that captured, I think, the dual goals of this trip, right? Hug them. Yes, we are with you. But caution at the same time. Be careful.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

This is an extremely delicate journey now.

NARRATOR:

Israel had just begun its retaliation against Hamas, and later that day Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unprecedented step of joining Netanyahu’s war cabinet to discuss their plans and the escalating civilian toll in Gaza.

RONEN BERGMAN, The New York Times:

The fact that State Secretary Blinken and President Biden insist on sitting inside the Israeli war cabinet, which never happened in the history of the relations between the two countries, this is the clearest example they just don’t trust them. They want to be there and make sure that things are not getting out of control.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

SUSAN GLASSER, The New Yorker:

It was a warning to Netanyahu and to the Israeli people: Don’t make the mistake that we Americans made after 9/11, which was to overreact. To do what our enemies wanted us to do and to unleash a military conflict that causes us all sorts of additional problems.

NARRATOR:

Two months later, Gaza is in ruins.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to push back against international calls for a ceasefire, saying—

KHALED ELGINDY, Author, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians:

The problem is that no one knows what will need to happen for Israelis to feel satisfied that they’ve achieved their stated objective of having destroyed Hamas.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Gaza has become a graveyard for children.

NARRATOR:

Thousands of Palestinians are dead.

KHALED ELGINDY:

And so all that’s left is to just keep killing and bombing and killing and bombing, until when?

MALE NEWSREADER:

They’ve prioritized the hostages, rather than—

NARRATOR:

With Hamas still holding hostages, Netanyahu has pushed ahead.

AMOS HAREL, Haaretz:

From the Israeli perspective, what matters right now is what happened Oct. 7. And there’s less and less talk about what would happen in Gaza, about the consequences, about the world’s criticism.

NARRATOR:

And now, tensions are mounting between the Israeli prime minister and the American president who’d hugged in solidarity.

SUSAN GLASSER:

Hugging Netanyahu turns out to be a very risky strategy. There are many people who look at the situation and say, “Well, what has this bear hug gotten us?”

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The U.S. is pressing Israel to shift to precise targeting of Hamas leaders rather than widespread bombing and ground operations.

NARRATOR:

For Benjamin Netanyahu, this moment of crisis is the culmination of a 30-year conflict over a failed peace process he has long resisted. Over American pressure to come to terms with the Palestinians—

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

It’s not going to happen.

NARRATOR:

—and over the security of his country that he vowed to defend.

PETER BAKER:

With all of this death and destruction, it’s hard not to look back and say, “Where did the road turn? When did it become inevitable that we would head to this cataclysmic conflict?” The second-guessing is haunting.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Preparations are underway. We expect to see the president shortly.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—for what he called an historic and honorable compromise.

NARRATOR:

Thirty years ago, a hopeful moment in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It’s a day for optimism—

NARRATOR:

Two sworn enemies arrived at the White House to sign a peace agreement.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The deal was struck in secret by the principals—

NARRATOR:

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a former general, represented Israel.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—have now agreed to lay down their guns—

NARRATOR:

Representing the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

DENNIS ROSS:

This is a historic breakthrough between Israel and the PLO, two national movements competing for the same space, and for the first time, they’re prepared to recognize each other.

NARRATOR:

Known as the Oslo Accords, supported by President Bill Clinton, it was designed to end years of violence by laying out a peace process, a deal that could give Palestinians their own state and land captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

SAEB EREKAT, Chief Palestinian negotiator, 1995-2011:

President Clinton felt this was his baby.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:

It charts a course toward reconciliation between two peoples who have both known the bitterness of exile.

NARRATOR:

On the White House lawn, the tensions were visible.

DENNIS ROSS:

To the last minute, there were issues. Rabin is insisting that Arafat can’t come in anything that looks like a uniform. We’re telling Arafat, “Don’t even—You can’t come with a—You don’t bring a weapon.” You know, he always had a pistol. “You don’t bring a weapon to the White House.”

SANDY BERGER, Clinton adviser, 1993-2001:

Then, at a point, the president looks at Rabin and he says, “You’re going to have to shake his hand.” And Rabin looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. And he stood there for a moment. This is a man he considered a terrorist all his life.

NARRATOR:

And then, the handshake. An image that would become iconic.

SAEB EREKAT:

These hands that shook knew nothing but to shoot—the trigger, the bullets, the bombs, the fight. And the question to me is, can this handshake lead to the culture in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis that coexistence is possible, that peace is possible, to live and let live?

NARRATOR:

But in Israel, an outcry against the peace process had been building among the ultra-religious right wing and security-minded conservatives. The face of the opposition: the 43-year-old leader of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, known as Bibi.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

The PLO Islamic state 15 minutes from Jerusalem or 5 minutes from Tel Aviv is a prescription not for peace, but for dangerous and renewed conflict.

NARRATOR:

Week after week, Netanyahu watched the protests build.

ISRAELI PROTESTER:

We’re demonstrating against the inability of the government to maintain order in this country and to protect the rights of Jews living in their own land.

NARRATOR:

Concerned a Palestinian state would pose a security risk to Israel, Netanyahu maneuvered the growing anger into a political force.

DAVID REMNICK, Editor, The New Yorker:

Netanyahu saw a moment of betrayal and peril and an agreement that would never and could never work.

MARVIN KALB, Author, The Road to War:

He did not believe in the possibility of a deal with the Palestinians. He didn’t trust them. He didn’t like them. He doesn’t. And he doesn’t want to have a deal with them. He didn’t want to have a deal with them.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—suicide bomber boarded the bus someway back, waiting—

NARRATOR:

At the time, among the Palestinians, there was also a rising faction opposed to the peace process.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The car bomb was aimed at killing the maximum number of Israeli schoolchildren.

NARRATOR:

A recently formed Islamic militant group started setting off suicide bombs inside Israel. Its name: Hamas.

KHALED ELGINDY:

When the Oslo agreement is signed most Palestinians said, “Let’s give this a chance.” But there was that core constituency among Palestinians who said, “The peace process is a sham. It can never succeed. Only armed struggle can liberate Palestine.” And Hamas became the embodiment of that sentiment.

NARRATOR:

Hamas’ founding declaration called for the destruction of Israel and condemned all attempts at negotiation.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It was another test for the already strained Middle East peace process.

NARRATOR:

Their increasingly brazen attacks would fuel Israeli opposition to the peace talks and the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Arafat is a very weak reed indeed. He gives cover to the Hamas. He makes a pretense of fighting them but effectively allows them to attack us with impunity.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Mass protests reinforced opposition to the accord from right-wing groups.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu’s opposition movement reached a fever pitch in October 1995, when tens of thousands crammed into the center of Jerusalem.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew]—for we will never allow Jerusalem to be divided again.

NARRATOR:

From a balcony overlooking Zion Square, he addressed the crowd.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] We are here because we have only one Jerusalem and we will defend her.

NARRATOR:

The crowd was with him as he attacked Yasser Arafat—

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew]—the murderer Arafat—

NARRATOR:

—and then the government of Yitzhak Rabin.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] I’m saying this to the government of Israel, which is bowing down to this man.

DENNIS ROSS:

There’s a really ugly character to it. The level of vitriol, the anger, the scope of these demonstrations. The kind of incitement. The portrayal of Rabin, dressing Rabin in Nazi uniforms or putting a keffiyeh on him.

ISRAELI PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Hebrew] Death to Rabin!

DAVID REMNICK:

There were moments when Netanyahu was advised that there are real nutcases in the national religious camp that we see, that we need to calm down. Even gesturally.

ISRAELI PROTESTERS:

[Speaking Hebrew] In blood and fire we will expel Rabin!

DAVID REMNICK:

Netanyahu never did that. He never did that, to his enormous discredit.

ISRAELI CROWD [chanting]:

Bibi! Bibi!

NARRATOR:

Then, a month later, at the end of a rally of his own, Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down. The assassin: a right-wing Israeli Jew.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

One lone gunman was taken—

NARRATOR:

Yigal Amir.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Truly shocking news from the Middle East tonight. Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has been assassinated.

MALE NEWSREADER:

An evening spent dreaming of peace turns into a national nightmare.

NARRATOR:

Outside the hospital, the crowd began to chant “Bibi is a murderer.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

From Tel Aviv, where this evening there is anger shock and understandable sadness—

NARRATOR:

The sign says, “Bibi, Rabin’s blood is on your hands.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

An assassin has taken yet another world leader away from us. It was just after the biggest peace rally in Tel Aviv—

NARRATOR:

Rabin’s widow blamed Netanyahu for contributing to her husband’s death—

MALE NEWSREADER:

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin has also produced shock in the Palestinian community—

NARRATOR:

—and said so on worldwide television.

MALE REPORTER:

Your husband pointed the finger at Mr. Netanyahu and said, “You must stop this incitement.” To what extent do you blame Mr. Netanyahu and the Likud for what has happened?

LEAH RABIN:

I do, I do blame them. The rally in Kikar Zion in Jerusalem that showed him in the uniform of a Nazi. So Mr. Bibi Netanyahu, now he can say from here to eternity that he didn’t support it and didn’t agree with it, but he was there and he didn’t stop it.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu’s close adviser at the time vehemently disagrees.

EYAL ARAD, Former Netanyahu adviser:

The attempt to pin on him the murder of the prime minister is a cheap political propaganda trick that was taken by his political opponents, mostly from the left, in order to delegitimize Netanyahu as a political public and to delegitimize the positions of Likud in the Israeli open political debate.

BILL CLINTON:

Your prime minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate.

NARRATOR:

After Rabin’s death, the peace process he had championed was in jeopardy. His successor, Shimon Peres, would now try to win an election to keep it alive. That meant facing Bibi Netanyahu, whose standing in the polls had fallen in the wake of the assassination.

CHEMI SHALEV, Haaretz:

People who spoke to him in those days have said that he thought that his career was over.

NARRATOR:

Then, as election day neared—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Ten kilograms of explosives reduced this commuter bus to a charred skeleton.

NARRATOR:

—Hamas had struck again. The No. 18 bus, right through the heart of Jerusalem.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Bombs packed with nails and shrapnel exploded in Israel Sunday, killing—

SAEB EREKAT:

There were some Palestinian groups trying to make sure that—sabotaging of the peace process. “Rabin was assassinated, let us stop the whole process.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

This morning, the sound of sirens again interrupted the morning commute.

NARRATOR:

Six days later, the No. 18 bus again.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Police combed the hellish wreckage for clues about a suspect.

NARRATOR:

The bus bombings were part of a series of Hamas attacks that killed more than 60 people and injured hundreds.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Israelis did not, could not believe the morning news. Another bloody Sunday.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

A suicide bomber has once again blown up a city bus in Jerusalem—

EYAL ARAD:

And Israelis lost faith in the process, in that process. One of the slogans that came from grassroots was, “This peace is killing us.”

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

We see terrorism exploding in our streets, literally. So the only thing that we can do is not to continue on a failed course. This is bound to lead to more and more terrorism. That’s exactly what’s been happening.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu began to climb in the polls.

RONEN BERGMAN:

He was able to speak to the masses and translate the horror of suicide bombers into political power and say, “I will be able to solve this. I am strong. I come from a military background. I have the experience and the spirit to stop suicide bombers.”

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

There are many ways of fighting terrorism, but the first decision is to fight it.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu had railed against the Oslo Accords and promised security to the growing number of Israelis scarred by the violence. It worked.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The difference between Mr. Netanyahu and the current prime minister, Shimon Peres, is a mere fraction of 1%.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to the United States for his first visit since becoming Israel’s prime minister.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Benjamin Netanyahu’s dealings with the president of the United States will be of intense interest among—

NARRATOR:

Just over one month later, Prime Minister Netanyahu was at the White House.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu will hold a joint news conference after they meet Tuesday.

NARRATOR:

Behind closed doors, Clinton would demand Netanyahu continue the Oslo peace process and personally meet with Yasser Arafat. It didn’t take long for the meeting to become contentious.

DENNIS ROSS:

He came in pretty full of himself. And he was pretty much telling the president how to deal with the Arabs. He understood how to deal with the Arabs.

SANDY BERGER:

His sort of posture was, “Let me tell you about the Middle East.” And he then proceeded to lecture the president on the realities of the Middle East. “Here’s the way it is.”

MARTIN INDYK, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, 1995-97:

Netanyahu wanted to make clear that even though the previous government had signed the agreement, that he had some real reservations about it. And so I think that that’s why it got off to a bad start.

DENNIS ROSS:

And so when the meeting’s over, Clinton turns and he says, “Who does he think the superpower is?”

NARRATOR:

Under pressure from Clinton, Netanyahu agreed to a compromise gesture. He would meet with Yasser Arafat.

DAN EPHRON, Author, Killing a King:

And I think there’s a moment where Netanyahu has to decide can he try to block the actual implementation of the agreement but concede some things that Clinton was pressing for in terms of an on-camera, for instance, handshake with Arafat? I think that was the calculation.

SAEB EREKAT:

That day, I was there. And I was thinking, “How will this happen?” I was trying to do whatever I can to make sure that if needs to, I will employ every damage control mechanism, every crisis management. Everything.

NARRATOR:

It was a meeting Netanyahu had insisted would never happen.

TZACHI HANEGBI, Netanyahu adviser:

Very, very hard. Very hard. He swore he will never shake Arafat’s hand.

NARRATOR:

Once the handshakes started they kept coming. And he took other steps. He pulled Israeli troops out of a key city in the West Bank and signed a treaty agreeing to further implement Oslo. But close observers say he was slow-walking the peace process.

DAN EPHRON:

Netanyahu is an ideologue very deeply. In every step of his premiership, starting in ’96, everything he’s doing he’s thinking, “How do I limit this thing? How do I make sure I don’t have to give back more land? And if I do, what’s the smallest area of concession that I can make?”

NARRATOR:

The compromises would prove fateful for Netanyahu.

CHEMI SHALEV:

Nobody was happy with him. The left weren’t happy with him for what he was doing to undermine Oslo, and the right wasn’t happy with him for what he was doing to keep Oslo. He was in this sort of impossible balancing act.

ISRAELI PROTESTER:

[Speaking Hebrew] This is Adolf Hitler. He’s the same as Adolf Hitler.

DORE GOLD, Netanyahu adviser:

At that point, the prime minister’s conservative base folds, and some people on the conservative right work with the Israeli left to bring down Prime Minister Netanyahu.

NARRATOR:

In 1999, he’d lose his bid for reelection, but he’d take with him some key lessons.

CHEMI SHALEV:

One, his view of Democratic liberal American presidents as the rival if not the enemy. Two, the fact that concessions on the peace process could lead to his downfall.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] That is why I am announcing today my intention to retire from the Likud leadership.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu would spend the next several years working his way back into power.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Israelis and Palestinians in a last-ditch pitch for Middle East peace.

NARRATOR:

He watched as Clinton brought his left-wing successor, Ehud Barak, and Yasser Arafat together at Camp David—

MALE NEWSREADER:

A summit that’s been declared make or break.

NARRATOR:

—for another peace effort that would have created a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

Among the difficult issues left unresolved was the control of Jerusalem.

DIANA BUTTU, Adviser to Palestinian negotiators, 2000-05:

When Camp David happened, the Palestinian team said, “We don’t think the parties are prepared. The groundwork has not been done.” I think the problem with Clinton was that he believed that everything could just be undone with some magic wand.

MARTIN INDYK:

Barak made a far-reaching offer. I think went further than he was planning to do. But for Arafat, it was unacceptable.

DENNIS ROSS:

And he said, “If I accept this, you’ll be—Do you want to walk behind my casket?” That’s what he said.

I had a dinner with one of the former Palestinian negotiators, and I won’t name him because this was done in confidence. And he said to me, “We and the delegation all wanted to accept it, and Arafat just sort of blew us away.” And he said, “Can you imagine where we would be today if we had said yes?” I think about that conversation often right now.

NARRATOR:

The failure of the deal at Camp David set in motion a new round of frustration and violence on both sides.

DIANA BUTTU:

Palestinians were fed up. There were years of failed negotiations. Security for them went backwards. Freedom of movement went backwards. Freedom of religion went backwards. The economy went backwards. And there was a point at which Palestinians said, “Enough. We are done with this process of negotiations.” And so everything unravels. Everything unravels.

KHALED ELGINDY:

That cycle of violence in which there were fairly high casualties on both sides, that definitely soured both publics, Israeli public and the Palestinian public, against the notion of a peaceful resolution. We see a rightward shift in Israeli politics happening around that same time. And we also see a shift happening on the Palestinian side, where opponents of the peace process, violent opponents of the peace process like Hamas, are emboldened by the violence on the one hand, but also the failure of negotiations.

NARRATOR:

By 2005, Netanyahu was back at the center of the Israeli government. He was finance minister in the administration of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had a new plan for dealing with the Palestinians: no negotiations. Instead, a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from the Gaza Strip.

PETER BAKER:

The Israelis concluded a long time ago that they didn’t actually want Gaza. They weren’t planning to annex it. They wanted actually to pull out of it. They’re going to get the heck out, and it’s up to the Palestinians what they want to do with it at that point.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu grew uneasy about the implications of handing over Gaza to the Palestinians. He consulted a former military intelligence chief.

YAAKOV AMIDROR, Israeli National Security Adviser, 2011-13:

Netanyahu asked me what is my view, and I was totally against it. By evacuating all our forces, we allow Gaza to be an extreme country which will be controlled by Hamas.

NARRATOR:

A week before the pullout, Netanyahu resigned in protest.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

I cannot be a partner to a move that I think compromises the security of Israel.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Jewish settlers have until midnight tonight to get out of Gaza or be removed by force.

NARRATOR:

When the pullout happened, the army had to forcibly remove many Israeli settlers from their homes, deeply dividing the country.

MALE NEWSREADER:

This is just a trauma for the nation of Israel, dividing their country, pitting the right wing against the army.

NARRATOR:

In Washington, President George W. Bush had been pushing the Palestinians to quickly take advantage of the moment and hold democratic elections.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

Mr. President, we will work with you to help realize the dream of a free and democratic Palestine.

NARRATOR:

The Bush administration threw its support behind the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who’d taken over since the death of Yasser Arafat.

GEORGE W. BUSH:

Welcome back to the White House.

NARRATOR:

Abbas and his Fatah party were unpopular among many Palestinians, who saw them as corrupt and ineffective. Hamas decided to run against them.

DENNIS ROSS:

In 2006, when Hamas runs, they run a disciplined campaign. The slogan was, “We’ll provide good governance. We’ll fight corruption. And Islam is the answer.” That’s how they ran.

YAAKOV AMIDROR:

It was open, free elections which were promoted by the United States of America, not by us. We didn’t like the idea. But under the pressure of the Americans, we did it. And Hamas won.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The sweeping victory by Hamas is being described as a political earthquake. Already, though, aftershocks being felt in Gaza.

KHALED ELGINDY:

Hamas’ election victory in 2006 was a surprise to everyone, including Hamas. Hamas was designated by Israel, by the United States and by many European countries as a terrorist organization. So this was not a government that they could deal with.

PETER BAKER:

It showed the fraught consequences of a democracy agenda. Sometimes democracy doesn’t lead you to the results you actually want.

MALE NEWSREADER:

As we’ve been reporting here, there’s been a bloody and violent takeover of power in Gaza.

NARRATOR:

Having won the election in Gaza, Hamas soon took complete control, driving out its rivals in a violent civil war. Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party retreated to the West Bank; Gaza would be Hamas’ stronghold.

PETER BAKER:

Gaza becomes a fortress for an organization whose founding charter talks about killing Jews and eliminating Israel. And they are now not just a terrorist organization in Gaza, but the governing organization in Gaza. And that means that the Israelis have to figure out how to deal with them.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel is now barred to almost all Palestinians.

NARRATOR:

The Israeli government imposed a blockade on Gaza. It said it was trying to stop the group from bringing in weapons and prevent its fighters crossing into Israel.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The civilian population are facing increasing desperation and misery.

NARRATOR:

But it also trapped the population.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Israel says that Gazans will not starve on a more basic diet.

KHALED ELGINDY:

The notion that you could keep 2 million people locked up indefinitely with no real economy who are entirely dependent on Israel opening and closing the border to allow movement of goods and people in, where the majority of the people are now impoverished, I think was not only absurd but also quite cruel, because it depended on periodic, predictable eruptions of violence that, from Israel’s standpoint, were acceptable.

NARRATOR:

As Netanyahu had predicted, within a year Hamas was firing rockets and mortars into Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes. It would become a recurring cycle.

By 2008, Netanyahu was once again running for prime minister, with a campaign slogan of “Strong Against Hamas.”

DANA WEISS, Israeli TV journalist:

He is a great politician, and he has understood the DNA of the Israeli public. He understands that you have to look them in the eye and you have to say, “I’ll keep you safe.”

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have locked up the prime minister’s office.

NARRATOR:

He was reelected amid growing fear of Hamas attacks. But during the run-up to his victory, a new president had entered the White House. Netanyahu was concerned.

MARVIN KALB:

I happened to be on a reporting trip in Jerusalem, and I went into the coffee shop at the King David Hotel. There was one other person there, and it was Netanyahu sitting in a corner by himself reading newspapers. There was one thing in his mind: “Who is this guy, Obama? Who is he? What is he really like?” And he wanted very much to point out to me, as if I didn’t know it, that Obama’s middle name was Hussein and that his father was a Muslim. What kind of objectivity could this man bring to bear on Israel?

NARRATOR:

From his first day in office, President Obama had set a new tone. His first phone call was to Mahmoud Abbas.

DIANA BUTTU:

He started off by sending the right signals to Palestinians. And I found that very sincere because he didn’t need to make that phone call.

NARRATOR:

Later, for his first television interview, he chose an Arab TV network.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries. My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world.

It is my privilege to come here.

NARRATOR:

And he signaled to Palestinians and Israelis that he wanted to restart the peace process.

BARACK OBAMA:

History shows us that strong and sustained American engagement can bridge divides and build the capacity that supports progress.

NARRATOR:

In May 2009, he invited Netanyahu to the White House.

BARACK OBAMA:

All right, everybody. Just tell me when everybody’s set up. Great. Well, listen, I first of all want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for making this visit—

NARRATOR:

Obama took a hard line with Netanyahu. He pressed the prime minister on a key issue: stopping the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank built on land captured in the ‘67 war and claimed by the Palestinians.

CHEMI SHALEV:

It wasn’t a request, it was a demand. And I think that this shocked Netanyahu, shocked the people around Netanyahu and gave proof to the people who had been whispering in Netanyahu’s ears that this guy is up to no good.

BARACK OBAMA:

Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult issue. I recognize that. But it’s an important one and it has to be addressed.

DIANA BUTTU:

The signal he was sending to the Israelis was one of, “I believe that this has to come to an end.” They need to hear that they can’t build Israeli settlements any longer, that there has to be an end to it.

NARRATOR:

For Netanyahu, his first meeting with the president couldn’t have gone worse.

CHEMI SHALEV:

I think Netanyahu recognized in Obama suddenly a person who was hell-bent on setting up a Palestinian state.

TZACHI HANEGBI:

And I remember him coming back from his first meeting with President Obama, something that tells him that it’s going to be a different president. Super-intelligent lawyer. He has a vision and something in what we in Hebrew call a “neshama.” The soul is too cold to be connected to Israel.

NARRATOR:

Once again, Netanyahu was at odds with an American president. Obama’s peace efforts over the next few years wouldn’t be able to break the cycle of violence that had been raging between Israel and the Palestinians.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Now Israel is carrying out brand new airstrikes in the Gaza Strip today.

MALE NEWSREADER:

New explosions in Gaza, fresh Israeli airstrikes.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Sirens warned of another round of Hamas rockets. Since the fighting began—

NARRATOR:

Obama would send his veteran conflict negotiator, George Mitchell, to the region more than 20 times.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Hamas security forces the target in a third day of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza.

GEORGE MITCHELL, Middle East envoy, 2009-11:

Emotions were very high and very negative. There was a lot of hostility, a lot of feelings of victimization on both sides. The circumstances were not conducive to moving forward.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Mitchell says that he will be going back to the region in the next few days.

NARRATOR:

Neither side was ready to do a deal.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Mitchell back again in Israel.

NARRATOR:

Eventually, Mitchell gave up. He submitted his letter of resignation in 2011.

GEORGE MITCHELL:

I withdrew. I concluded that the level of mistrust between both societies made it highly unlikely that they would be able to overcome that level of mistrust and reach agreement.

FEMALE ANNOUNCER:

The president of the United States, Barack Obama.

NARRATOR:

With his Middle East efforts in trouble, Obama doubled down.

BARACK OBAMA:

For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa.

NARRATOR:

Amid the Arab Spring, he delivered a speech at the State Department that lasted nearly an hour, but would be remembered for just one line.

BARACK OBAMA:

We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.

NARRATOR:

That Israel should return land it captured in the ‘67 war to form a Palestinian state was a familiar demand, but one never endorsed so publicly by a U.S. president.

MICHAEL OREN, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., 2009-13:

It became the headline. The headline in The New York Times was, “President Obama endorses the ‘67 borders.” The rest of the speech about the Arab Spring went virtually unreported. Now for Israel, this was a major development.

DAVID REMNICK:

Netanyahu believes if you have a Palestinian state in anywhere approximating the ’67 borders, the potential for peace is zero; that the capacity for Israel to maintain its security even in the state it’s in now will be radically diminished.

NARRATOR:

The White House had not briefed Netanyahu. And as it turned out, he was planning a trip to Washington the next day.

MARTIN INDYK:

From Netanyahu’s point of view, he was convinced that this was an attempt to ambush him, embarrass him and put him in a situation where the president was, from Netanyahu’s point of view, weakening Israel’s negotiating position by declaring a stance on the ‘67 lines. And so he was furious about it.

NARRATOR:

When Netanyahu landed, his ambassador could tell there would be trouble.

MICHAEL OREN:

I’d never seen him like that coming out of the plane. There was no smile. There was no wave. And you can almost imagine steam coming out of his ears.

NARRATOR:

Just as in their first meeting, the press was summoned.

BARACK OBAMA:

Everybody set up? All good? Let me, first of all, welcome once again Prime Minister Netanyahu.

NARRATOR:

But this time, Bibi Netanyahu would lecture Barack Obama on the peace process and Hamas.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of Al Qaeda.

PETER BAKER:

You’re watching President Obama there with his face in his hand, and you can tell it’s not going over well. This is his house, and to be lectured in his office rankles.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Israel cannot negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas.

NARRATOR:

Watching it unfold, Chief of Staff Bill Daley.

DENNIS ROSS:

Bill Daley is standing next to me and he’s going, “Outrageous. Outrageous!” And he’s just—I mean, it’s like he was almost levitating.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

—and because, Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance.

DAVID REMNICK:

Obama was treated to a lecture on Jewish and Israeli history that just went on and on, and deeply offended, deeply offended Obama and his people.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

It’s the ancient nation of Israel. And you know, we’ve been around for almost 4,000 years. We’ve experienced struggle and suffering like no other people—

DAVID REMNICK:

There was a sense of gall. What gall.

NARRATOR:

After the public dressing down, Obama faced a choice about how to respond, how hard to push Netanyahu.

CHEMI SHALEV:

I think Obama realized at that time that the price that he was paying for trying to ram something down Netanyahu’s throat that Netanyahu didn’t want to have rammed down his throat was not worth—it wasn’t worth it for him.

NARRATOR:

The Palestinians, who had once cheered Obama’s election, now watched with disappointment as the peace process not only faltered, but Israel continued to build settlements.

DIANA BUTTU:

His approach has been to send signals but to never follow up his signals with actual action. He didn’t back up his statements against settlements with actual actions and saying to the Israelis, “You have to make a choice now. Do you want these settlements, or do you want the money that we give you every year?” It’s always just been one signal after another signal after another signal. And this isn’t an area that deals well with signals. This is an area that requires concrete action.

DANA WEISS:

He proved to the Israeli public, look, when I defend you even against the strongest person in the world, the president of the United States, we still get what we need in defense terms and we still get this huge check from the United States. He managed to prove that Israel didn’t pay a price.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Israel has many friends and allies, but when they’re mistaken, it’s my obligation to speak out clearly and openly and say so.

MALE NEWSREADER:

If Netanyahu as expected continues to be the prime minister, we can expect continued tense relationship with the Obama administration.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu would capitalize on his defiance of Obama as he ran for reelection in 2015. He publicly lashed out at the president over his deal with Iran to curtail its nuclear program.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

The deal currently on the table is deeply flawed. Instead of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, this impending deal will facilitate that development.

NARRATOR:

He said it was a grave security risk to Israel that would also fuel Iran’s backing of Hamas. It played well to his base on the Israeli right. He took an even harder line on the Palestinian issue.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] I opposed, and I adamantly oppose, the division of Jerusalem. I adamantly oppose going back to the ’67 borders. I adamantly oppose the right of return. And that’s not all. Look at practical reality. For years, we—I have been facing this whole pressure campaign. I haven’t pulled back a single centimeter. I have continued to build in Jerusalem’s neighborhoods. I have never agreed to divide Jerusalem. I have never agreed to pull back to the ’67 borders and I never will.

DIANA BUTTU:

He came out plain and simple and said there will not be a Palestinian state. And that was the true face of Netanyahu.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has won what’s being called a stunning reelection victory.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] We have achieved a great victory for the Likud.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu’s election victory emboldened his approach to the Palestinians. He would take advantage of the fact they were divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

DANA WEISS:

He wanted to divide, and he wanted to make sure that he doesn’t have to negotiate any deal where you would connect between the territories and Gaza.

KHALED ELGINDY:

From an Israeli standpoint, it makes sense. Divide and rule. Keep the West Bank and Gaza separate. That’s the best way to prevent a Palestinian state. Keep them both weak, but not weak enough where they collapse.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu made a particularly fateful gamble when it came to Hamas. With Gaza under blockade, he allowed the wealthy Gulf state Qatar to give Hamas hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance.

RONEN BERGMAN:

He allowed Qatar to pay Hamas massive bags of cash in dollars to buy quiet, to buy calmness from Hamas.

AMOS HAREL:

This money was spent on digging tunnels and buying rockets and producing weapons now killing Israelis. While Netanyahu was telling us that he was our great protector, he was actually contributing, not directly, to building Hamas and making it a regional power.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Israel has responded to a rocket attack from Gaza with three punishing air strikes.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Israel’s military said the strikes were a response to a rocket fired into southern Israel.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu has denied he was empowering Hamas and pointed to repeated military offensives in Gaza against the group, a containment strategy known as “mowing the grass.”

KHALED ELGINDY:

This notion that every so often there would need to be predictable rounds of violence, “mowing the grass,” as Israelis call it, only to result in reinstating the status quo that existed before the violence was an untenable situation. I and others had argued that eventually something’s going to give. There’s going to be an escalation that spirals out of control. The situation becomes so dire in humanitarian terms in Gaza that there’s a bigger explosion than anyone had anticipated. And that’s precisely what happened.

NARRATOR:

With the Palestinians divided and Netanyahu pursuing a strategy keeping it that way, a new president with a new approach to the region came to power.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

Thank you. I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel.

NARRATOR:

Donald Trump boasted he’d be the first U.S. president to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

SUSAN GLASSER, Co-author, The Divider: Trump in the White House:

Donald Trump neither knew nor cared about the history of the Middle East or the failed efforts at Middle East peacemaking. What he knew, or what he thought he knew, was that there was a big deal that was looming out there and that if you could make it, you’d get a Nobel Peace Prize and the deal of the century.

NARRATOR:

Trump surrounded himself with a team that included his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was a family friend of Netanyahu, and David Friedman, a controversial figure who supported Israeli settlements.

PETER BAKER, Co-author, The Divider: Trump in the White House:

You had these advisors on Israel, all of them Jewish, all of them strong supporters of Israel, none of them with any particular background in negotiation in the region in terms of peace talks, but with very, very developed positions and points of view.

DAVID FRIEDMAN, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, 2017-21:

He was anxious to see if there could be a peace deal reached between Israel and the Palestinians. I will tell you candidly, I was skeptical of that from the beginning.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

At the White House, Netanyahu has been full of praise for the president.

NARRATOR:

Just one month into his term, Trump invited Netanyahu to the White House to discuss the possibilities.

NATAN SACHS, Center for Middle East Policy:

For Netanyahu and his advisers, this was first and foremost a moment of opportunity. Trump seemed to them volatile, unpredictable, but perhaps unpredictable in ways that would benefit Israel.

DONALD TRUMP:

Bibi and I have known each other a long time. Smart man, great negotiator. And I think we’re going to make a deal.

NARRATOR:

Trump gave Netanyahu an early nod in his favor, saying he would be open to something other than a two-state solution.

DONALD TRUMP:

I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I could live with either one.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

It shocked a lot of people. I mean, Trump was not of the conviction that there needed to be a two-state solution. He thought that there could be any number of ways where this conflict could be resolved, and a two-state solution was one of them. But he was certainly not pushing it.

PETER BAKER:

That is really a sea change in American policy, because basically, going back for multiple presidents, the idea of an independent Palestinian state as part of an ultimate solution or resolution of this conflict has always been the idea. And he’s thrown all that out the window.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We expect President Trump any moment now.

NARRATOR:

Trump would soon follow that up with an even more surprising announcement, fulfilling a longtime wish of Netanyahu’s.

DONALD TRUMP:

Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

PETER BAKER:

Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. If you put the American Embassy there, you’re seemingly putting your foot on the scale, saying, “We take Israel’s side in this.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

This is a historic moment.

HUSAM ZOMLOT, Head of Palestinian Mission to the U.S., 2017-18:

We told him from the day he started doing all that, from the first day, there will be no contact policy with you. You are completely and utterly boycotted. You shall not be a trusted mediator in this. You are disqualified.

NARRATOR:

Palestinians took to the streets to protest.

HUSAM ZOMLOT:

The U.S. knows that Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue. That was a move by the U.S., in a way, to tell Israel that it has Jerusalem. And deciding to have Israel pocket this before starting negotiations, then you definitely do not want to have negotiations in the first place. You do not want to see a peace process ignited in the first place, and you ain’t interested in a two-state solution, altogether.

FEMALE ANNOUNCER:

Please join me now in welcoming Ambassador David Friedman.

NARRATOR:

In May of 2018, Friedman, Kushner, Netanyahu and nearly a thousand guests gathered in Jerusalem for the official ceremony marking the move of the U.S. Embassy.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

Jerusalem is the heart and soul of the Jewish people. Even the most left-wing Jewish prayer books contain a prayer that God will restore the Jewish people to Jerusalem. So for the most important country in the world, the most powerful country in the world to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the fact that that hadn’t been done for so long was just an open wound.

It is now my great honor to call upon the prime minister of the state of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

What a glorious day. Remember this moment! President Trump, by recognizing history, you have made history.

DANA WEISS:

I was actually there. I was anchoring our broadcast from the embassy in Jerusalem. And I remember I looked around at the crowd. It was just the crowd from one part of the political map. You didn’t see there a lot of people from the opposition. You didn’t see a lot of people from the peace camp or people who were used to working with the administration. It was a party of the right.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

We are in Jerusalem and we are here to stay. And our brave soldiers, our brave soldiers are protecting the borders of Israel as we speak today. We salute them all.

NARRATOR:

That day, around 50 miles south, at the border with Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered to protest the embassy move and Israel’s ongoing blockade. Hamas urged protesters to break through the border fence. Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire, killing more than 60 people.

KHALED ELGINDY:

What the embassy move symbolized to Palestinians was that they were not going to have a state with its capital in Jerusalem, because now the president of the United States had said that only Israel had legitimate claim to Jerusalem and that it would remain eternally Israel’s capital.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

Unfortunately, there was violent activity that day, and it ran its course. So we didn’t focus on that. We focused on our ceremony.

FEMALE SINGER:

Peace will come upon us.

NARRATOR:

For Netanyahu, it was a high point in his relations with an American president.

DANA WEISS:

When President Trump came in and started to give all the gifts to Netanyahu’s administration and to the Israeli public, it was like every day was Boxing Day.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu’s government began a rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank—the very move Obama had personally warned against.

DONALD TRUMP:

Because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace.

NARRATOR:

The Trump administration backed it, reversing the U.S.’s 40-year position that the settlements were illegal.

MIKE POMPEO, Secretary of State, 2018-21:

The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

These settlements are not the impediment to peace. And I believe as a matter of law and as a matter of right, and I believe as a matter of the Bible, which didn’t drive my views in office but certainly drives them now that I’m not a public figure anymore, as a matter of biblical law, this land is biblical Israel. That little piece of land was given by God to the Jewish people.

HUSAM ZOMLOT:

Seeing the U.S. performing, behaving, acting this way to the majority of the Palestinian people was definitely a source of hopelessness. And you know what? Hopelessness is a very dangerous feeling. And when hopelessness accumulates over decades, it’s not—it’s no longer just dangerous. It’s catastrophic.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The president of the United States and the prime minister of the state of Israel.

NARRATOR:

Adding insult to injury for the Palestinians, Trump and Netanyahu convened at the White House to announce what would be called “the deal of the century.”

DONALD TRUMP:

I was not elected to do small things or shy away from big problems.

PETER BAKER:

So there’s this announcement in the White House, and Trump comes out, and he’s very proud. He says, “I’ve got this great deal that’s going to solve the Middle East peace problem here.” No sign of the Palestinians. They want nothing to do with this.

HUSAM ZOMLOT:

That scene was the most vulgar expression of what the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government were all about. They were about liquidating the two-state solution, liquidating the Palestinian issue and cause.

DONALD TRUMP:

Under this vision, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s undivided—very important—undivided capital.

NARRATOR:

The deal offered Netanyahu much of what he wanted.

DONALD TRUMP:

But that’s no big deal because I’ve already done that for you, right? We’ve already done that, but that’s OK. It’s going to remain that way.

NATAN SACHS:

The deal of the century was a fantastic blueprint from the perspective of the Netanyahu point of view. No settlements to be removed. A rump Palestinian entity that they might call a state but was not really a state, would have no control of its borders, no control even of its own water, no control of its airspace. It would not be able to function as a state. It would be a collection of municipalities.

DONALD TRUMP:

It is only reasonable that I have to do a lot for the Palestinians or it just wouldn’t be fair. Now don’t clap for that, OK, but it’s true. It wouldn’t be fair.

NARRATOR:

To try to lure the Palestinians into the deal, Trump promised international investment worth $50 billion.

HUSAM ZOMLOT:

An American president stands next to an Israeli prime minister and tells them, “We will buy you off with some money.” That scene has hit the heart of every Palestinian, the heart of Palestinians who have been struggling for 100 years.

NARRATOR:

Then Netanyahu took the podium and went even further than the terms of the deal.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

I hope that the Palestinians embrace this.

NARRATOR:

He announced Israel was about to annex almost a third of the West Bank.

PETER BAKER:

Netanyahu announces that he’s going to proceed with annexation of the West Bank. It’s a unilateral claim on territory. It really throws a lot of sand in the gears of what’s going on here, because if you start unilaterally claiming sovereignty over sections of the West Bank without having made any concessions, what is the incentive for the Palestinians to come to the table?

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

And may God bless us all with security, prosperity and peace. Thank you.

NARRATOR:

The Palestinians were now effectively sidelined. But unexpectedly, it set the stage for a major shift in the Middle East. In the summer of 2020, Yousef Al Otaiba, a friend of Jared Kushner’s and the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the U.S., saw an opportunity to propose a different kind of peace deal to Netanyahu. Not between Israel and the Palestinians, but between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors.

NATAN SACHS:

By this time, many of the Arab governments are eager to have relations with Israel, and the

Palestinian issue is a nuisance on the way. And for some of them, they felt that they were always putting their interests second to the Palestinian cause. And when Israel speaks of annexing parts of the West Bank, the Emiratis, in particular, the United Arab Emirates, see an opportunity to prevent that annexation in exchange for a peace deal.

NARRATOR:

Al Otaiba said that the UAE and other Arab nations would consider normalizing relations with Israel if Netanyahu stopped his planned annexations.

KHALED ELGINDY:

The fact that the UAE would even consider signing a normalization deal with Israel without consulting Palestinians was pretty remarkable. It’s really a sign of just how much the region has changed in the past decade and how much lower the Palestinian issue was now on even the priorities of Arab states.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

I think they saw annexation as an opportunity for them that if they were able to prevail upon the U.S. and Israel to suspend that annexation, that would give them sufficient political cover with the Palestinians to then move closer to Israel. They could say to the Palestinians, “Look, we’re moving forward with Israel, but just so you know, if it wasn’t for us, the annexation would have occurred. So we have certainly considered your interest as well during this process.”

NARRATOR:

At the White House, Trump’s team jumped on the idea, which played into a long-held goal of Netanhayu’s.

SUSAN GLASSER:

This was Netanyahu’s theory of the case, that the world was moving on from the Palestinians. That in fact Israel could achieve meaningful and lasting stability without having to trade away land for peace to the Palestinians, which had always been the premise of the two-state solution.

NARRATOR:

After talks facilitated by Trump’s team, Israel and two Arab countries, the UAE and Bahrain, announced they would normalize relations. Netanyahu dropped his annexation plans.

It was the first peace treaty between Israel and any Arab country in almost 30 years.

DONALD TRUMP:

We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history.

SUSAN GLASSER:

Ultimately the deal that Trump announces with great fanfare at the White House is not a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It’s not the Mideast peace you were looking for. [Laughs] It’s a totally different issue. It’s a step forward. It’s a significant step forward.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

This day is a pivot of history.

NATAN SACHS:

They’re doing all this without any real movement on the Palestinian issue. For Netanyahu, this was the crown jewel of his legacy, to a certain degree.

DAVID FRIEDMAN:

It’s a wake-up call for the Palestinians to say, “Guys, you know what? Everybody’s got their own issues. Not everybody is laying up at night worrying about yours.”

KHALED ELGINDY:

The Abraham Accords were definitely seen as a betrayal by Palestinians. And Palestinians in general felt that the Arab states had abandoned them.

NARRATOR:

The Palestinian Authority called the accords “despicable.”

DENNIS ROSS:

Palestinians did not take advantage of the opportunity the Abraham Accords made. If the PA had gone to the Emirates and said, “OK, you’re going to do this, it’s—OK, we appreciate no annexation, but here are some other things that you should be asking for.” And the Emiratis would have done it. But they were so quick to sort of condemn them, “You betrayed us.” There’s a constant theme of betrayal in the Palestinian narrative, and there isn’t a constant theme of responsibility on the Palestinian side.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Iran sees the Abraham Accord as a threat.

NARRATOR:

The Abraham Accords would incite Israel’s enemies and seed conflict to come.

PETER BAKER:

What you see, if you’re Hamas, is the world is moving beyond you. They no longer care, it seems like, about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. And this is a deal that is essentially marginalizing Hamas, marginalizing the Palestinians, marginalizing their grievance. And they’re left to wonder, “Well, what becomes of us? What do we do to get some attention to our cause again?”

HUSAM ZOMLOT:

You cannot ignore the Palestinian people no matter how much you try, by the power of the missiles and the tanks, as we have seen throughout the years and now, or by the power of the complete capitulation of a U.S. administration like Trump, or by the power of getting some Arab countries to normalize without a real solution. All that does not work and shall never, ever work.

NARRATOR:

May 2021. In Jerusalem, violent protests erupted over the potential evictions of Palestinians from their homes. The conflict escalated when Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites. From Gaza, Hamas retaliated, firing rockets toward Jerusalem. And in response, Netanyahu launched multiple airstrikes.

It was just four months into President Joe Biden’s term, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was suddenly front and center.

PETER BAKER:

Early in Biden’s tenure, he has sort of a test case of what’s going to happen in Israel and Gaza region.

And the question for Biden as the American president is, “OK, what are you going to do about it?”

NARRATOR:

He’d known Netanyahu for more than 40 years. And as Israeli forces pummeled Gaza, he picked up the phone.

PETER BAKER:

He basically is not willing to restrain Netanyahu at first. He says, “We’re with Israel. They have a right to defend themselves.”

SUSAN GLASSER:

He thought we don’t criticize Israel on the world stage, because they get enough of that. But we hold them close and that way, when we pick up the phone and we say, “Time’s up, your military operation has run its course,” that they’ll listen.

NARRATOR:

As the violence intensified, Biden pushed Netanyahu for a ceasefire.

AMOS HAREL:

It ended in a sort of a miserable draw. A ceasefire was reached.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] Whoever thinks we will tolerate a flow of rockets is wrong.

AMOS HAREL:

As usual, the Israeli leadership were saying, “We’ve won this round again, and Hamas is weakened and deterred. We’re stronger. We proved our military might; Hamas is deterred.”

NARRATOR:

But for Hamas, the conflict was a breakthrough. They used it to tout themselves as fighting not just for Palestinians in Gaza, but in Jerusalem as well.

RONEN BERGMAN:

They bombed Jerusalem. They bombed Tel Aviv. They saw themselves as regional leaders, not as a local organization that is fighting Israel over the border between Gaza and Israel.

KHALED ELGINDY:

Hamas now is not just protecting its fiefdom in the Gaza Strip, but now vying for leadership of the Palestinian struggle as a whole by being the only party that is responding to events in Jerusalem, in contrast to the impotence and ineffectiveness of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

CROWD [chanting in Arabic]:

We’re here for you, oh, Al-Aqsa.

NARRATOR:

In the wake of the conflict, a photo of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, sent a foreboding message.

AMOS HAREL:

What Sinwar did, which was quite interesting, is take a picture of him sitting on an armchair. The destruction around him was quite clear. This was saying, “OK, you’re maybe stronger right now, but I haven’t lost anything. I’m willing to go for another round whenever I choose.” At the same time, Hamas was also beginning to prepare its plan of attack, something that it implemented so horrifically on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas video

HAMAS PROMO VIDEO:

[Speaking Arabic] Protectors of the faith, the army of Palestine, arrows of the night, and destiny.

NARRATOR:

Netanyahu’s go-to strategy toward Hamas, containment in Gaza, was beginning to crack. But his focus was elsewhere.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—over allegedly accepting bribes in a breach of trust.

NARRATOR:

He was embroiled in scandal, facing charges of bribery and corruption. He and his coalition government were briefly toppled.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

We’ll be back, soon. We’ll be back.

NATAN SACHS:

His own personal affairs lead eventually to three different indictments on criminal charges, including bribery, charges that he has always claimed are bogus and are an attempt to persecute him.

NARRATOR:

To regain power, Netanyahu courted Israel’s most extreme parties.

NATAN SACHS:

And so for Netanyahu, he felt, “I have no chance but to go to the right, even the very far right.” Even parties on the extreme far right that his own Likud party had always shunned.

AMOS HAREL:

Some members of Likud warned him that this will be very dangerous. That the whole government will take a very dangerous ideological direction.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has inaugurated the most far-right government in the country’s history.

NARRATOR:

Recently reelected and now the head of a new, far-right government—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—controversial plans to overhaul the justice system.

NARRATOR:

—Netanyahu started pursuing a dramatic overhaul of Israel’s judicial system that would weaken the courts’ power over the executive branch.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

It was a sudden outpouring of rage.

NARRATOR:

Protests erupted across Israel.

FEMALE ISRAELI PROTESTER:

Bibi is not here for the democracy. Thank you very much.

PETER BAKER:

We see hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets, which is pretty amazing for a country of just 10 million people. And they are there week after week after week protesting Netanyahu’s efforts, which they see as a threat to democracy. They see it as a power grab by the prime minister.

AMOS HAREL:

He’s facing trial for three different counts of corruption, and for him it was a life-or-death moment. He needed to change Israel’s legal system so he could somehow stop the trial.

RONEN BERGMAN:

That led to I would say the biggest wave of protests in the history of the country. And probably the most severe political crisis and social crisis in the history of the country. Looking at this now, after Oct. 7, that seems like a sweet dream for Israelis. But back then, it was the country being on the brink of civil war.

NARRATOR:

Inside Netanyahu’s government, intelligence officials worried that the political unrest was leaving the country vulnerable to its enemies.

RONEN BERGMAN:

In many meetings, the chiefs of Israeli intelligence warn Netanyahu that the political crisis and its effect on the military are perceived by Israeli enemies as the time to take more aggressive initiative against Israel.

AMOS HAREL:

There were actually quite a lot of warnings saying, “Look, we’re creating here the perfect storm.” And at one point or another one of our enemies would use that to start a war because they would feel that we’re weak, and that we’re consumed with our own domestic political problems.

MALE NEWSREADER:

But those protesting say that this is escalating into an existential battle for Israel’s democratic—

NARRATOR:

In Washington, President Biden watched the situation with alarm and urged Netanyahu to reverse course.

JOE BIDEN:

They cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear. Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise. But that remains to be seen.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The president’s meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—

NARRATOR:

For Biden, the unrest in Israel threatened to disrupt a plan he’d been nurturing to take the Abraham Accords to the next level in the Middle East: he and Netanyahu had been quietly courting Saudi Arabia.

NATAN SACHS:

They did push and try to expand on the Abraham Accords, in particular with a vision of Israeli-Saudi normalization that would offer a dramatically different vision of the Middle East, and one that would fit in well to their vision of creating alliances, in particular in competition with China and Russia.

NARRATOR:

By late September 2023, at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, a deal was taking shape. Netanyahu met with Biden for the first time since forming his far-right government.

PETER BAKER:

There’s a lot of anticipation leading up to this meeting. You see the friendly version of Biden and Bibi, right? You see the bon ami, you see the collegiality. “We’ve been friends for decades. And yes, we can disagree, but on the important stuff we’re on the same page.” And it’s an important moment.

NARRATOR:

Biden used the meeting to discuss how to bring the Palestinians into the deal.

BRETT McGURK, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser:

When he sat down with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the main topic of that meeting, which lasted almost two hours, was about the Palestinians and how they fit into the Saudi deal. Now, I’ll say Gaza was not a part of that process, and that’s because Hamas is in charge of Gaza.

U.N. ANNOUNCER:

Prime minister of the state of Israel, I invite him to address the assembly.

NARRATOR:

Less than three weeks before the Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu would make a fateful speech.

RONEN BERGMAN:

He said, “We are going to have peace with Saudi Arabia. And the Palestinians should not have a veto on that.”

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

I’ve long sought to make peace with the Palestinians. But I also believe that we must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states.

RONEN BERGMAN:

Which is, in a different language, from my point of view, “The Palestinians can f— off.” Sorry, excuse my French.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Now for years, my approach to peace was rejected by the so-called experts. Well, they were wrong. Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East.

RONEN BERGMAN:

The leaders of Hamas, as they explain to us, they see this and they understand that in a moment the Palestinian issue will be completely taken off the world agenda.

Hamas training video

RONEN BERGMAN:

Now, they came to the conclusion, a jihadist conclusion, of blood, of murder, of massacre. They wanted regional war.

DANA WEISS:

There’s an Israel before Oct. 7, and there is an Israel after Oct. 7. The barbarity. The hate. The raping. The burning. The killing of children. The ruthlessness. Those atrocities are second only to what the Jews met in the Holocaust. After Oct. 7, every single Israeli I know is asking themselves one question: “Is this a place where I can have a tomorrow? Is this a place where I can live?”

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Israel is at war. We didn’t want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way.

NARRATOR:

Hamas had carried out the deadliest single assault in Israel’s history, and it had happened on Benjamin Netanyahu’s watch.

AMOS HAREL:

He saw himself as the greatest protector of the state of Israel and persuaded himself and his supporters that Israel was safe and that he could handle everything.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Hamas will understand that by attacking us, they have made a mistake of historic proportions.

AMOS HAREL:

He would manage the Palestinian conflict without attempting to solve it. He would keep Hamas as an enemy entity, but a weak one.

The problem, of course, is that he refused to accept the fact that actually some of his actions were pushing Hamas in the worst direction possible.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

Israel will win this war, and when Israel wins, the entire civilized world wins.

NARRATOR:

In Washington, President Biden was visibly shaken by the killing and taking of hostages.

JOE BIDEN:

This is an act of sheer evil. More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered—not just killed, slaughtered in Israel.

PETER BAKER:

I was just a few feet away from him. You could just see in his face and see in his mannerisms that he really was viscerally outraged.

JOE BIDEN:

Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.

PETER BAKER:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a president quite as angry in a speech as Biden was that day.

JOE BIDEN:

Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have. It’s as simple as that. Those atrocities. It’s sickening. We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake. Thank you.

NARRATOR:

But despite his full-throated public support, as Israel began airstrikes in Gaza, behind the scenes, Biden was concerned.

BRETT McGURK:

Their position was no humanitarian assistance should go into Gaza until the hostages come home. That was the unanimous view, and the president wanted to go face-to-face and say, “We cannot accept that. We cannot accept that policy.”

NARRATOR:

Within days, the president arrived in Tel Aviv.

PETER BAKER:

President Biden really wanted to make a statement with this trip. It was really a very dramatic moment.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

He is now descending the stairs of Air Force One, making this historic visit to Israel.

NARRATOR:

The famous bear hug, with its dual message of solidarity and caution.

PETER BAKER:

He doesn’t want to look like that he is telling the Israelis how to respond, but he’s just giving them the caution of a friend, is the way he would put it. “We’re with you here, but be careful. There are limits to how far you should go.”

KHALED ELGINDY:

The bear hug approach, hug Israel publicly, show no daylight with Israel, while privately delivering messages to show restraint and to be more cautious and so forth, that approach doesn’t work. It’s never worked.

There needed to be a more stern message about the need to operate within the constraints of international law. We are seeing unprecedented levels of civilian casualties. The vast majority of people who are killed in Gaza right now are women and children. And for what? What is the upper ceiling? Is it 20,000 killed? Is it 100,000? What is the upper limit?

CHILD BOMBING SURVIVOR:

[Speaking Arabic] They bombed an entire street with the residents still inside. I carried him. I pulled him out from under the rubble.

NARRATOR:

The bloodshed has played into Hamas’ hands.

RONEN BERGMAN:

They blessed, they prayed, they wanted this to happen so Israel will react with force. The whole region is destabilized. And according to them, the Palestinians are not forgotten. They were willing to sacrifice Gaza and all the Gazans in exchange of their jihad.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

A very intense few days of protest around the world.

NARRATOR:

The humanitarian crisis from Israel’s military response has brought widespread condemnation. But with Hamas still holding hostages, Netanyahu has been pushing forward.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] No amount of international pressure, or reviling of IDF soldiers and our state will change our faith in the justice of our cause and in our right and in our obligation to defend ourselves.

BRETT McGURK:

If you go to Israel, this is a country that is united and mobilized behind this campaign.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The mounting isolation of the United States as it continues—

NARRATOR:

In the U.S., there has been increasing pressure on President Biden to do more to restrain Israel’s response.

BRETT McGURK:

We all want this war to end yesterday. If someone says, “Do you want the war to continue or stop?” The answer is of course stop. But recognizing that if Hamas is fully intact, it simply creates the conditions for the next conflict. This is an incredibly difficult dilemma. It’s something we are confronting really even at this hour.

NARRATOR:

In the face of the criticism, the president has been trying to turn attention to the day after.

BRETT McGURK:

We’re working very hard to bring it to a point of conclusion, to which something better and more durable can be established, including ultimately Palestinian state. And we’ve said that very clearly.

JOE BIDEN:

I think the only ultimate answer here is a two-state solution that’s real.

SUSAN GLASSER:

I’ve been really struck by the extent to which Joe Biden and some of those around him have immediately revived the language of the two-state solution.

RONEN BERGMAN:

What Biden seemed to want is to use this tragic moment for something bigger, for two-state solution, for negotiation. And this is where he and Netanyahu are in total different worlds.

NARRATOR:

Now, the two men who’d embraced on the tarmac are increasingly at odds. Last week, for the first time since the war started, Biden criticized Netanyahu directly for what he called “indiscriminate bombing.” He stepped up the pressure for Israel to scale back the military campaign and he called on Netanyahu to support a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu staked out his own hard line.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:

[Speaking Hebrew] I wish to clarify my position. I won’t allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo.

NIR HEFETZ:

Bibi now, here in Israel, behind scenes, is already talking to members of the Likud party and the right-wing camp that “I am the only one who will stand against the two-state solution after this war ends. If anyone can stand against Joe Biden and block the two-state solution, it’s me, Bibi.”

AMOS HAREL:

We have a leader who’s mistrusted by most of the Israeli voters, and yet he’s leading us through our worst crisis since this country was established 75 years ago. And this is part of the tragedy. We may be facing not only our worst security situation, but also a huge political crisis with no kind of solution on the horizon.

KHALED ELGINDY:

There is no going back. Everyone agrees. Israelis, Americans, Palestinians, Gaza, West Bank, anywhere you ask, everyone agrees there’s no going back to the Oct. 6 status quo. The question is, where do we go from here? Is it a pathway to something less awful? Or is it more destruction and death and something considerably worse than what we’ve had before? Those are still open questions.