In the dark days after the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel and the ensuing military assault on Gaza, some dared hope the carnage could, in some way, become a catalyst for peace. “Crises can create opportunities,” veteran Israeli peace negotiator Yossi Beilin told NBC News last year. The world had given up on the Israel-Palestinian question, he said, but the horror of Oct. 7 and its aftermath “changed everything,” provoking a worldwide cry that this should never happen again. “There’s definitely room for hope,” Omar Dajani, a former legal adviser to Palestinian negotiation teams, agreed. “So long as we bear in mind that hope and optimism are different things.”One year later, those glimmers of hope have been shredded.

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Persons: Yossi Beilin, “ There’s, ” Omar Dajani Organizations: NBC Locations: Israel, Gaza