El Al flight 791 made history on Aug. 31 when it flew directly from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi. However, it could have taken off four years ago. This week's historic event could have happened in 2016, when “regional peace” was taking shape in a series of clandestine contacts among various parties. The cast included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli opposition leader Knesset member Isaac Herzog, US Secretary of State John Kerry and a series of Arab leaders including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates.

For Herzog, the former Zionist Camp party leader, current chair of the Jewish Agency and presidential hopeful, the missed opportunity was surely bitter. He could have been an honored guest on the flight. Throughout 2016, he conducted secret negotiations with Netanyahu on joining his government. The idea was that Herzog and his party would join Netanyahu’s radical-right coalition government to shore up its slim margin of Knesset support (61 of 120 seats), and together the two would launch a regional peace initiative. They intended to upend the Middle Eastern paradigm that set Israeli peace with the Palestinians as a precondition for official ties with the Arab world, abandon the Palestinian issue and start instead from the outside and work their way inward.

The UAE was first on the list of peace partners followed by other Arab states, among them Saudi Arabia. Herzog visited various Arab states and found that an impressive number of their leaders were willing to go along with the move. His intensive negotiations with Netanyahu were conducted in two stages, the first around March of 2016 and the second in September of that year. The two political rivals came to an agreement but when it came time to sign, they both got cold feet. Netanyahu feared the wrath of right-wing lawmakers and ministers and Herzog faced strong opposition by some of his party members, chief among them Shelly Yachimovich. All contacts were suspended. Regional peace was postponed, only to break out this week, without Herzog in attendance.

Blair was the key sponsor of the idea. Herzog recounted this week to Al-Monitor that Blair was a close personal friend of bin Zayed, himself a close and influential friend of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Blair was also a close friend of Sisi. Blair spent a lot of quality time with bin Zayed and told Herzog fascinating stories, for example about an Emirati F-16 squadron with all-female pilots.