The photo marking the moment is so enduring because it once seemed so unlikely. President Bill Clinton towered over two other men as he encouraged them to shake hands. Yitzhak Rabin, then Israeli prime minister, and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), were smaller in stature than Clinton. To their separate and warring peoples, though, they were giants who seemed then to be on the verge of creating an historic agreement.
That was September 13, 1993. That picture, taken on the White House lawn after secret negotiations in Oslo, is remembered now perhaps as a time of great hope, but also as the start of a process that ultimately did not succeed.
