In his inaugural 1992 speech as prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin made it clear that his second term in office would be transformative for Israel. The world, he stated, was rapidly changing. The Iron Curtain had fallen, dominant ideologies had crumbled, and nations long subdued by foreign powers were settling into independent states. “It is our duty, to ourselves and to our children,” Rabin said, “to see the new world as it is now – to discern its dangers, explore its prospects and do everything possible so that the State of Israel will fit into this world whose face is changing. No longer are we necessarily ‘a people that dwells alone,’ and no longer is it true that ‘the whole world is against us.’ We must overcome the sense of isolation that has held us in its thrall for almost half a century. We must join the international movement toward peace, reconciliation and cooperation that is spreading over the entire globe these days – lest we be the last to remain, all alone, in the station.”

Rabin was not a bleeding-heart lefty. His rationale for seeking peace with the Arab states and the Palestinian people reflected a strategic decision to seize a historical opportunity to secure Israel’s future for generations to come. This strategic decision, clearly enunciated in that first statement as prime minister, was a necessary condition for the breakthrough that soon followed.

Rabin foresaw that an open-ended process was not the proper path forward: “From this moment on, the concept of a ‘peace process’ is no longer relevant. From now on, we shall not speak of a ‘process’ but of making peace.” Twenty years after his tenure was cut short because of its historical potential, it is worth dwelling on Rabin’s distinction between making peace and peace-processing. Rabin came into office less than a year after his predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, was unwillingly dragged to the Madrid Conference.

In an interview shortly after the election, Shamir confessed that, going into the peace talks, he feigned moderation for tactical reasons, “but without conceding anything on the goal – the integrity of the Land of Israel.” Indeed, diplomatic negotiations are futile if the political will is missing. Where there’s a will, there may indeed be a way; yet a way – a process, a negotiating table, an ardent mediator – cannot make up for lack of will.

Over the past 20 years, many actors in the thriving peace industry have come to fetishize the means – usually, direct bilateral negotiations – at the expense of the end. They are trapped in what I call the Magic Theory of Negotiations: the belief that negotiations can bring leaders to make decisions they are strongly disinclined to make, without a change to the incentive scheme.

Rabin was probably the last Israeli prime minister to enter talks with the Palestinians with a strategic decision to close a deal. While he may not have known precisely what the final-status agreement would look like, he had resolved to extricate Israel from the potentially disastrous consequences of the status quo. His will found a way.

The peace process can go on indefinitely even in the absence of political will to make peace. However, peacemaking is, almost by definition, impossible without a leadership committed to ending the conflict. Since the terms for ending the conflict are well known, such commitment can be measured with a simple litmus test: a declared willingness to make necessary concessions. Whatever these concessions would have been in Rabin’s time, and whether or not he would have eventually made them, we all know what they are today. Accordingly, an Israeli leader presenting him or herself as a peacemaker while pledging allegiance to the unity of Jerusalem (or insisting that the settlement of Ariel will remain in Israeli sovereignty, or that Israel will not accept a single Palestinian refugee, and so on) must be recognized as a coward or a charlatan. Charlatans thrive in the hot air of the peace process: taking a leaf out of Shamir’s book, they employ the semblance of progress in the interest of the status quo; cowards need the peace process to conceal the fact that they do not have what it takes to make peace.

The peace process is dangerous precisely because it can all too easily masquerade as peacemaking. Israeli cynicism and Palestinian despair over the prospect of peace are largely due to the repeated crushing of their hopes by rounds of futile peace-processing.

If and when the obvious mutual interest in partition is translated into effective political will, there will be no need for an intricate process, and seemingly irreversible facts on the ground will crumble under the unstoppable force of self-interest. Until then, let us hold off on peace-processing – for the sake of peace.

The writer is co-founder and co-chair of Molad, the Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy. Conference Partner