Tied tie

A few seconds before the program started, Bill Clinton received an urgent warning from a young assistant: "Mr. President, you need to straighten your tie."

Clinton reached out to touch his neck. At the hint of the host, three Middle Eastern leaders extended a helping hand to them. Only Yasser Arafat, the hard-hearted chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, put his hand next to him. Of course, that was when he was in Caffier, and it was also a part of this fraternity scene, because he lacked western-style clothes. His former arch-enemy Yitzhak Rabin belongs to the left wing. Soon, they will walk into the East Room of the White House and sign the latest carefully designed peace plan, the Oslo Agreement.

This is a stupid photo taken by White House photographer Barbara Kinney-"People often smile when they see it," she said, but it is also a photo full of intimacy and hope. It was about ten years ago that afternoon, September 28th, 1995. Here, politicians see themselves as the best man in the historical background.

Photos and images are frozen by time, but the meanings they evoke are fluid. Ginny's photo once represented possibility. These leaders represent people who have hated and killed each other for decades, but in the glory of Bill Clinton's White House friendship, they formed an indissoluble bond, if not because of mutual affection, at least because of each other's vanity. In Washington, they signed the Oslo II Agreement, which aims to permanently resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine over holy sites within five years. In the second stage, part of the autonomy of parts of the West Bank will be ceded to the Palestinians. The two people in the center of the photo, Egyptian President Mubarak and Jordanian King Hussein, are particularly important. They let the wider world recognize this agreement, which is not only a matter of relying on Arafat and his eccentric ways.

Two years ago, a more famous picture of Clinton as a messenger of peace was taken on the South Lawn of the White House. When Oslo was unveiled, Clinton planned Rabin's handshake with Arafat. But the fact is that Clinton had little to do with the original agreement. Palestinians and Israelis negotiate directly and secretly, and then submit them to the White House. Rabin's handshake is always tentative and reluctant.

For those who are most familiar with the peace process, Ginny's image is more vivid. This is spontaneous, not staged. It reflects the idea that the leaders of the Middle East, especially Rabin and Arafat, are finally ready to change the grim situation of history in their new fortresses and blood-stained areas. "Brothers of Peace" Martin Indyk recalled: "There is a feeling of friendship, love and trust between brothers of peace." He is the American ambassador to Israel, and Ginny was in the room when she raised her camera.

Nowadays, these photos evoke failure rather than possibility. In less than six weeks, Rabin will be killed by an Israeli right-wing fanatic who doesn't like the former war hero going to peace. Clinton is very sad. Later, he played a more powerful role on the world stage, but in 1995, he was still a diplomatic apprentice in many ways. He respects Rabin, who is older than him. He knew about violence, struggle and physical courage, which Clinton only read. After Rabin's death, despite the gradual disintegration of Oslo, Clinton insisted on establishing peace in the Middle East for the remaining five years. However, Arafat's all-night cajoling, rhetoric and casual conversation at Camp David can't be compared with Arafat. He is unwilling to face up to the hatred of his own people and accept any role other than the victim.

In the last hours of Clinton's presidency, Arafat told him that he was a "great man". Clinton recalled in his memoirs that he reacted strongly to this: "I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you made me a failure.

So Ginny's moment echoed.