"Mr. Rabin, only few men can wage peace the way you did. Any fool
can wage war, as we can see around the world today." So wrote Kofi
Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, into the Yitzhak Rabin
Condolence Book. On the seventh anniversary of his assassination, November
4, the Israeli embassy in Washington commemorated his achievements in
war and peace with moving tributes by his son and by former President
Clinton.
Rabin, the soldier, belonged to the generation that fought to secure
Israel as a state in 1948 and again in the Six-Day War in 1967. After
the conquest of large Arab territories, however, forward-thinking Israelis
recognized that the nation could not indefinitely impose an occupation
regime upon a foreign people. Israel's claim to be a democratic society
would be hollow if it denied civil liberties and self-determination
to its next-door neighbors.
The peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 showed Israelis that Arabs were
willing to live in peace with them, even though chauvinistic elements
on both sides continued to agitate against compromises. When Rabin entered
into his second term as prime minister in 1992, he felt that the time
had come to end the burden of the occupation, as well as Israel's isolation
from its Arab neighbors. To achieve a rapprochement with the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO), however, required a courageous leap of
faith, overcoming domestic resistance, and negotiating crucial compromises
with Yasir Arafat.
Secret talks resulted in the Oslo Agreement and a Declaration of Principles
signed at the White House in 1993. The PLO recognized Israel's right
to exist; Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative
of the Palestinian people. Israel would relinquish land; the PLO would
make peace. Subsequent negotiations led to the establishment of the
Palestinian Authority and a semi-autonomous status for the Gaza and
sections of the West Bank.
Israel's ultra-nationalists, however, were determined to reverse the
peace process. Handing over but an inch of occupied land to Palestinians,
they saw as treason. Chanting "Death to Rabin," they paraded
around with posters showing Rabin in Nazi uniform. Graffiti on walls
and phone booths denounced the Prime Minister: "Rabin is a traitor"
and "Rabin = Hamas." Few people seemed to pay attention to
these agents provocateurs. On November 4, 1995, however, it became clear
that Rabin's archenemies were dead serious. Deeply moved by thousands
of cheering admirers in Tel Aviv's City Hall Plaza, he told the crowd:
"I want this Government to exhaust every opening, every possibility,
to promote and achieve comprehensive peace. Even with Syria, it will
be possible to make peace."
As Rabin was leaving the rally, a 25-year old law student stepped to
within six feet of him and, with a 9 mm Beretta, pumped the lethal bullet
into him. "God told me to do it," he confessed. In view of
the malicious campaign against the Prime Minister, however, it became
obvious that the murderer was but the tool of all those who ached to
kill the peace process. Within seven months of Rabin's assassination,
in May 1996, a nationalist Likud cabinet came to power, led by Binyamin
"Bibi" Netanyahu, who liked to refer to Rabin and his followers
as the "surrendering leftists." Since then, the peace process
has gone nowhere. The Palestinians overreacted with their second intefada;
and, since Likud leader Sharon took power in February, 2001, the civil
war between occupiers and occupied has reached levels of brutality unthinkable
when Rabin and Arafat shook hands at the White House in September, 1993.
With the intransigent nationalists Sharon and Netanyahu now in power
and their hopeless hard line condoned by the Bush administration, Rabin's
pursuit of peace remains only a faint memory. Nevertheless, Israelis
have reason to cherish Rabin's last words: "This rally must send
a message to the Israeli people, to the Jewish people around the world,
to the many people in the Arab world, and indeed to the entire world,
that the Israeli people want peace, support peace. For this, I thank
you."