Some context around the “Forgotten Waves of Hope In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” video: I'm a former correspondent for ABC News, but still in touch with the current staff (as I am with a whole couple of generations of staff from the past).
I worked for ABC a long time, a stretch of more than 30 years dating back to 1982, and even a few years before that behind the scenes. I will always be grateful for that long run. ABC put me in front of major events, many of which were significant enough and memorable enough that they have already made it into history books, and the details are still familiar to many of us today.
Palestinians line up for a free meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on Dec. 21, 2023. International aid agencies say Gaza is suffering from shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies as a result of the two and a half month war between Israel and Hamas.
Fatima Shbair/AP
But not everything gets remembered. That's obvious, of course, so obvious it hardly seems worth mentioning. What I am really talking about is forgetting. All these years later, as a reporter who saw things and tried to understand them and told "stories" about them, I've found myself first surprised and then a little humbled to realize that a good part of the flow of events I covered -- which appeared history-making and super-important at the time -- have largely been forgotten by ... I don't know ... the general public, the culture, the collective consciousness? And pretty quickly, too. Twenty, thirty years is not actually that long ago.
A picture taken from southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip on Dec. 22, 2023, shows an Israeli army tank rolling past debris of buildings in the Gaza Strip amid ongoing battles with the Hamas militant group.
Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
This video came about because of something I remembered seeing in Gaza during times I was there in the 1990s and early 2000s. The key word is "hope." I was there at a time when the prospects had suddenly turned in a hopeful direction, where the Palestinians and Israelis were going to find a better way to share that land. When I went to Gaza, I saw that hope was a real thing. For me, that experience adds a layer to the current situation that I cannot unsee, that deepens the sense of pain and loss for all sides, but just barely leaves open the question of whether that hope can ever return.
Palestinians search through the rubble after an Israeli strike on the house of the Zaheer family in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on Dec. 22, 2023.
Ismael Mohamad/UPI via Shutterstock
But who remembers any of that now?
I wrote a note to Nightline's executive producer, Eman Varoqua, sharing that the ABC archives held a lot of footage around this notion. She responded by asking me to come in and tell the story once again. That's what this video aims to do. I deeply appreciated the insight, support and fresh ideas of the team I worked with, led by Senior Producer Jessica Hopper and producer Lauren Lantry, not to mention the producers and film crews who were with me 20 and 30 years ago.
President Bill Clinton stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin as they shake hands for the first time, on Sept. 13, 1993, at the White House in Washington D.C., after signing the historic Israel-PLO Oslo Accords on Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories.
J. David Ake/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
In so many ways, it is pure tragedy unfolding out there; and, in so many ways, incomprehensible. I hope this little bit of "un-forgetting" may help in understanding some of what came before.
John Donvan is now a writer, filmmaker and debate moderator. His book, “In A Different Key” (co-authored with former ABC producer Caren Zucker) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. Their film of the same name won the 2023 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Prize. He also hosts Open to Debate, heard weekly on public radio. In addition, John has a continuing role at ABC mentoring in writing and storytelling.
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