Yitzhak Rabin's great career

Leah and Yitzhak Rabin

Jewish Boston

Years ago, I wrote a post about the terrible loss of Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995) .  From his humble beginnings, Rabin’s family path exactly followed my own family’s and that may be why my parents admired him so warmly. Rabin’s parents, who came from the Ukraine, raised their children with a strong sense of Zionism, socialism and workers’ rights.

A book has been published called Yitzhak Rabin: Solider, Leader, Statesman, written by Itamar Rabinovich, by Yale University Press (2017). This re­vealing account of Yitzhak Rabin’s life, character and efforts drew both on original research and on the author’s memories as a close aide. The book covered Rabin’s military career before Israel’s War of Independence in 1948; the stunning victory in the Six Day War in 1967 when he served as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces; his term as ambass­ador to the USA (1968-72); his first term as prime minister (1974-77); and his role as Minist­er of Def­ence in the late 1980s.

Itamar Rabinovich asked how did Rabin move from be­ing a hawkish general and prime min­ister of a state whose political identity was forged in war, religious nationalism and the threat of destruction? How did he commit him­self to relentlessly struggling for peace?

The author analysed Rab­in’s relat­ionships with powerful leaders including Bill Clin­ton, Jord­an’s King Hussein and Henry Kiss­inger, and the political developments that shaped his tenure. There was also a focus on Rabin’s relat­ion­ships with imp­ortant Israeli pol­it­icians. Rabin and Shimon Peres dom­inated the Labour Party for many years, and the two men shared a long rivalry. Their rivalry during Rabin's first gov­ern­ment led to vigorous diff­erences regard­ing settlement the Occupied Territories. Rabin also disagreed with Abba Eban, Foreign Minister (1966-74).

 

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Ar­af­at, 

on the White House lawn with President Bill Clinton. 

Sept 1993, BBC

Already before Rabin began his second term as prime minister (1992-5), he saw that Israeli morale was declining. He noted the large numbers of Tel Aviv residents who left the city in 1991, due to the Gulf War Scud missiles that rained on the city. And he was devast­ated when the ter­rorists massacred Jewish school children in Jer­us­alem.

Rabin’s decision to push peace plans was extended to the most urg­ent of Israel's neighbours i.e Syria under Hafez al-Assad. Rabin's state­ment, which was con­vey­ed through the USA Secretary of State Warren Christoph­er, sug­g­es­ted a complete Israeli with­drawal from the Golan Heights; in exch­ange there would be a full peace, free-standing and started before Israel's full with­drawal. Rab­in­ovich blamed the Americans for mishandling Rabin’s peace proposal. Warren Christ­oph­er, for his part, believed Asad's reply was less negat­ive than Rab­in said it was. Rabin and Clinton’s team argued for the first time.

When Syria would not sign a peace agreement, Rabin turned his at­t­ention to the Palestin­ians under Yasser Arafat. Consider the Oslo Peace Process, the signature policy of Rabin’s second term as prime minister. This process recorded the emergence, the dev­el­opment and eventual breakdown of the peace negotiations bet­ween Israel and the PLO, from 1991 on. In Sept 1993 the two men sign­ed a historic declaration of princ­ip­les, pledging to pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

I was very wary about reading more about Rabin’s assassination at the hands of a Jewish right wing killer. But there were still ques­tions to be asked and answered since 1995. What were the implicat­ions of Rabin’s policies? What were the effects of his assass­inat­ion? How did Netanyahu and the right wing win the next election, so soon after Rabin signed the Oslo Accord in 1993 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994? Why did Oslo fail? Had Rabin lived, might Israel have changed direction? Was Yasser Arafat’s unexpected death in 2004 the result of assassination as well?

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Foreign minister Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, 1994.

NobelPrize.org

Conclusion
Rabin’s second term as PM was momentous and to some extent dictates Israel's polit­ical debates even now. The Oslo process, which began in 1993, might appear to be dead, but its goal in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by partitioning the land is alive (UN Security Council Resolution 242, 1967). The Israeli govern­ment currently under Prime Minis­t­er Binyamin Netanyahu opposes it, but the two-state solution is the only viable option for the safety of Jews and the acceptance of a Jewish state by the rest of the world.

Danielle Celermajer suggested that all readers respond to this biography according to their pre-existing position on Israel. If they regarded the 1948 War of Indep­end­ence as an act of force­ful colonialism, then Rabin’s role in building the newly developed Israeli Defence Force would have been criticised. After all, he led the IDF as chief of staff in the 1967 Six Day War. If they saw the Oslo Accords as a betrayal of the Jewish people on right wing pol­it­ical grounds, the Prime Minister Rabin would have been seen a traitor. If read­ers believed Mid­dle Eastern terrorists wanted to wipe Israel off the map, they would have supported Rabin to the last day of his life. This political dove and a military hawk provoked very different responses.

Rabinovich served as amb­assador to the USA (1993-6) and headed the negotiation team with Syria under Rabin. Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing killer who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin had been attending a mass rally in Tel Aviv in Nov 1995. I still cannot believe the sense of loss now :(

The author continued under Rabin's suc­c­es­s­or, Shimon Peres, until he resigned when Netanyahu won the 1996 el­ection. How appropriate that Rabinovich’s book on Rab­in’s bold peace initiatives appeared on the Six Day War's 50th anniversary.