Contemporary news reports from the Middle East make for depressing reading. Violent conflicts around the region have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions, fueling ever increasing animosity between religious, ethnic and national groups. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, it is worth remembering that not all that long ago in one corner of the Middle East, in Israel and Palestine, people on both sides of a seemingly intractable conflict felt real optimism about the future.

From September 1993, when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo peace accords, until Rabin’s murder at a Tel Aviv peace rally a bit over two years later, Israelis and Palestinians seemed to be moving towards a historic reconciliation. The concrete expressions of optimism were many: Palestinians living abroad were returning to the West Bank to build factories and businesses, ordinary Israelis were visiting the West Bank to shop and dine, and Palestinians were coming to Tel Aviv to enjoy the nightlife. People on both sides could almost taste the sublime sweetness of living in peace and bringing up their children in security and dignity.

But not everyone was happy with the way things were going. Among the Palestinians, rejectionist groups such as Hamas used violence to undermine the very idea of compromise, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat often said far less conciliatory things in Arabic than in English. Among Israelis, hard-line nationalists and nationalist messianists launched a vehement campaign to delegitimize Rabin, proclaiming him a traitor and holding aloft placards depicting him in a Gestapo uniform.

When I was a graduate student living in Israel at the time, it was clear to me that this kind of incitement was going to lead to someone getting killed, but overall, like most Israelis, I was cautiously hopeful .

It was in this spirit that I attended a huge peace rally in Tel Aviv on the evening of Nov. 4, 1995. My initial impression was that the rally had been a success, demonstrating widespread support for Rabin’s efforts. The first hint that something was amiss came when I saw Rabin’s black limousine screech away from city hall. Within minutes, people formed silent crowds around parked cars, their radios turned up to full volume. I walked half-a-mile to the main gate of Ichilov Hospital, arriving in time to hear Eitan Haber, the prime minister’s press secretary, announce his death to a small group of journalists. Around the country, the overwhelming response was one of profound shock and horror, but at the hospital that night a handful of Jewish extremists, in the traditional dress of yeshiva students, greeted the news with back slaps and high-fives.

At the moment of Rabin’s assassination the death of the peace process was not yet inevitable. Had another leader capable of leading Israelis towards painful, risky concessions come forward, or had Arafat not turned back to violence, the outcome might have been different. But over the next decade, Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns killed over a thousand Israelis, and in Israel there was a resurgence of messianic-nationalist groups, who pushed for ever more Jewish settlements on occupied land and ever harsher retaliation. Over the past 20 years, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that the goal of Rabin’s assassin and those who engaged in incitement against the prime minister — to bring the Oslo peace process to a halt — was largely achieved.

Given the general chaos in the Middle East these days and the caliber of the political and religious leadership in both Israel and the Palestinian territories, it’s hard to be optimistic. But as we mark the anniversary of Rabin’s murder, it’s worth remembering that there was a time not all that long ago when coexistence, mutual respect and two states for two peoples seemed not only possible but right around the corner.

During the summer of 2014, as I researched the current edition of Lonely Planet’s travel guide “Israel & the Palestinian Territories,” I traveled around Israel and saw Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze Israelis living, working, dining and spending their leisure time together. Seeing Israelis and Palestinians bathing together in the Dead Sea doesn’t make headlines, but it proves that peaceful coexistence, despite the best efforts of the zealots, is still possible.

Daniel Robinson, a long-time resident of Tel Aviv, writes travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet. He now lives in New London.

Note: The 20th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will be commemorated with a memorial service at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Congregation Beth El, 660 Ocean Ave., New London. Speakers will share recollections of the man, and of that tragic day. Also planned are a benediction and music. The service, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Eastern CT and area synagogues, is open to the entire community.