Ruby Chen, the father of slain American Israeli hostage Itay Chen, who was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, is looking to forge a different future for Israel, specifically one that avoids the frequent cycles of violence that have continued for decades and at great personal expense.Itay Chen was 19 and serving in the Israeli military when Hamas launched its cross-border attack. He was one of 46 Americans murdered during the deadliest attack in the country’s history, and his body was taken back to Gaza. Hamas handed over his remains in November 2025.
“What was the purpose?” Ruby Chen asked rhetorically in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “If it’s sacrifice, how do you make sure that sacrifice was not in vain, and that it meant something? But if it only means that my son actually, as a hero, prevented Hamas terrorists from going out and finding Jewish people and killing them, which is something that I could say, but what is the bigger meaning? If it’s just postponing the next vicious cycle by the next five or 10 years, then what was the purpose?”Chen, who views himself as a normal father thrust into the unfamiliar world of Washington politics and connections from his family’s advocacy for their son and the other hostages, believes it’s time for Israel to seek normalization with its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, to end the cycles of violence that have plagued the region for decades.“What I think is that the majority of the Israeli public believes that there is upside in having that normalization, and I personally lost a son due to this conflict,” he added. “Okay, how many more parents need to send a kid to the [Israeli military] with a percentage that [don’t return]? I think that more and more Israelis feel that way, that it’s been 80 years of this type of cycle happening.”His new mission, dubbed the Middle East Legacy Initiative, is looking to see an expansion of the Abraham Accords, which was President Donald Trump’s landmark foreign policy achievement during his first term. The accords normalized relations between Israel and Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and, during his second term, Kazakhstan.People walk past an electronic billboard showing President Donald Trump, left, shaking hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with text that reads, “We are ready,” in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. The sign is sponsored by the Coalition for Regional Security, an Israeli group of former military and political officials that seeks normalized relations with Saudi Arabia and separation from the Palestinians. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
