So THIS is what peace looks like!

It’s not the end of the world just because an Egyptian athlete refused to shake hands with his Israeli counterpart at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro last week. After all, the Egyptian is the one who violated judo etiquette. He’s the one whom the fans booed.

I won’t lose any sleep over his petty insult, and I doubt many Israelis will either. But the incident, as small as it was, does offer some food for thought about much bigger issues, such as the prospects for peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

The Judo Snubber, Islam El Shehaby, was born on Aug. 1, 1982. In other words, he was born nearly five years after Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem. Four years after the successful Camp David negotiations. Three and a half years after the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Three months after the final Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai.

Which is to say that El Shehaby has never known anything but peace with Israel. Throughout his entire life, Egypt has been at peace, not at war, with the Jewish State. So if El Shehaby hates Israel, it’s not because of anything in his personal experience. He’s not a bitter war veteran. He didn’t watch his friends die in some tank battle with the Israelis. There has to be some other reason to explain his hostility. And there is.

The peace treaty requires both parties to “abstain from hostile propaganda” against each other. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin insisted on that clause because he understood that for peace to last, it has to be between peoples, not just between leaders.

Leaders, of course, come and go. Sadat was assassinated in October 1981, even before Israel’s final withdrawal. Begin resigned from office in October 1983. For peace between Israel and Egypt to endure, both countries had to consciously educate their people to accept it.