New Delhi, July 17 -- The optimism sparked by the Oslo Accords in 1993-born from the visionary momentum of the 1991 Madrid Conference-has been buried by history. The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, at the hands of a Jewish extremist, not only shattered a historic opportunity but also ushered in an era in Israel marked by deepening skepticism toward the prospects of peace.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), for its part, has failed to rise to the occasion. The PA is riddled with structural and systemic corruption. Its leadership is an exhausted gerontocracy-devoid of fresh ideas, incompetent in governance, and thoroughly discredited. And these are the figures expected to take over from Hamas's terrorist rule in...