Yitzhak Rabin After 15 Years

[Today, November 4, is the day of the Middle East Institute's 64th Annual Conference. It is also the 15th Anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Since I will be tied up at the Conference all day and likely unable to post, I prepared this assessment of Yitzhak Rabin in advance.]

Looking back, it seems increasingly clear that the decline and fall of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, then only two years old, began in earnest with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995. (The Israeli commemoration is held on the 12th of Heshvan in the Hebrew calendar, and occurred last month.) It may not have been clear to the world until the collapse of Camp David II in 2000, but looking back, the vector seems downhill from the Rabin assassination. Last night at MEI's Annual Banquet, former President Bill Clinton, the keynoter, voiced his own feeling that if Rabin had not been killed, an agreement might have been reached in the 1990s. (Needless to say, he speaks with more familiarity with the subject than do I. He was President of the United States at the time.)

Whether you agree with that perception or not, Rabin was a major figure in the modern Middle East, a military man who may be best remembered for his (not terribly enthusiastic, but game nonetheless) handshake with Yasir Arafat at the White House in 1993, a former general who shared the Nobel Peace Prize (with Arafat and Shimon Peres).

Born in Jerusalem in 1922, the man who was to become Israel's fifth Prime Minister would also be the first Prime Minister born in Eretz Yisrael, albeit in Mandate days. David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir were all European-born (though Meir, born in Kiev, grew up in Milwaukee). And the first sabra Prime Minister fit the traditional sabra stereotype of "prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside" (like the sabra prickly pear cactus). Well, at least he fit the first part of the stereotype, with a reputation for a quick temper. In my days of writing about Israeli defense issues back in the 1980s, during his tenure as Defense Minister, I met him at various receptions, attended some of his press briefings, etc.: while I can't claim I got to know him personally, he always came across as a man with an abrasive edge to his personality, a chain smoker (common among Israelis of that generation) and an intense figure; the stories of his mercurial temper fit his general demeanor, though I never saw it displayed.

His English was good (he'd served as Ambassador to Washington in the late 60s/early 70s and helped forge the US-Israeli defense equipment supply), and his father had lived for some years in the US before going to Palestine.

Rabin was very much part of the independence generation of Israeli figures: forged in battle both before and during the War of Independence. He was a key figure in the Palmach, the elite forces of the Haganah; served in the British invasion of Lebanon during World War II and then rose to be the Operations Chief of the Palmach, finding himself interned by his former British allies. With independence he became a key figure in the Israel Defense Forces. He served in many key roles, including a controversial one in the Altalena affair when the IDF seized the Irgun ship Altalena at Tel Aviv during the first ceasefire, leading to longstanding resentment between himself and the Irgun's Menahem Begin, who would succeed him as Prime Minister after Rabin's first term. Rabin continued to play a key command role in the operations (Operation Danny) around Lydda, Ramla, and Latrun, and in the "Burma Road" construction to find a bypass around Latrun to keep open supply lines to Jerusalem, in which he served under Mickey Marcus, Israel's first general and the American officer who served under the pseudonym of "Michael Stone" (best known today for Kirk Douglas' portrayal of him in Cast a Giant Shadow).

After the War of Independence, Rabin remained in the IDF, and by 1964 rose to the post of Chief of Staff. In that capacity, he led Israeli forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. He had a breakdown of some sort on the eve of the war, however, and its exact nature has always been a bit mysterious. He attributed it to nicotine poisoning, though others thought it some sort of nervous breakdown.

In the wake of the war, Rabin left the IDF and served as Ambassador to the US from 1968 to 1973. Those years marked the real beginnings of the US-Israeli defense supply relationship, and the general turned ambassador played a key role. Returning to Israel, he was elected to the Knesset, and became Minister of Labor. When Golda Meir stepped down in 1974, he won the Labor Party leadership (defeating Shimon Peres) and became Prime Minister. During his term, Israel signed the Sinai disengagement agreement of 1975.

In 1976 he called new elections after a religious dispute brought the government down. When it was learned that his wife had a US dollar bank account in Washington, then technically illegal, he stepped aside as Prime Minister and Labor Party leader, and in the May 1977 elections, Menahem Begin's Likud won, the first time Labor or its ancestors had not led the government.

In 1984, Labor returned to share power in a series of coalitions with Likud, and Rabin became Minister of Defense, serving in that capacity until 1989, including the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987.

In 1992 he was elected Labor Party leader over Shimon Peres, and led Labor back to power to become Prime Minister a second time, replacing Yitzhak Shamir of Likud. The following year, he signed the Oslo Accords with Yasir Arafat in Washington.

Rabin's long history as a military leader strengthened his hand in taking a risk for a Palestinian settlement, in the classic "Only de Gaulle could give up Algeria/Only Nixon could go to China" pattern, Though Oslo was controversial, it also created one of the most optimistic periods kn the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It was soon followed by an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

Fifteen years ago today, Rabin attended a rally for peace in the large square adjacent to Tel Aviv's City Hall, then known as Kings of Israel Square (Kikkar Malkhei Yisrael). Yigal Amir emerged from the crowd and shot Rabin, who died within the hour. It was the first (and so far, only) time an Israeli Prime Minister was assassinated, and it was an Israeli opposed to Oslo who fired the shot.

Rabin's funeral was attended by President Clinton of the US, President Mubarak of Egypt, and King Hussein of Jordan: the presence of Arab heads of state would have been unthinkable when the only previous Prime Minister to die in office, Levi Eshkol, passed away in 1969. The square where Rabin was shot was renamed Rabin Square, and today holds a memorial to him.

Oslo might well have foundered if Rabin had lived, as Clinton suggested and I suspect, but that can't be known for sure: alternative history is a useful exercise, but we can't prove a negative. What is clear is that his assassination set the process back, and the following year Likud returned to power under Binyamin Netanyahu. You know the rest.