Everything about Yitzhak Rabin totally explained
(
1 March 1922 –
4 November 1995) was an
Israeli
politician and
general. He was the fifth
Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974-1977 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995. In 1994, Rabin won the
Nobel Peace Prize together with
Shimon Peres and
Yasser Arafat. He was
assassinated by a right-wing Israeli radical opposed to Rabin's signing of the
Oslo Accords. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after
Levi Eshkol.
Biography
Yitzhak Rabin was born in
Jerusalem in 1922 to Nehemiah and Rosa, two pioneers of the
Third Aliyah. Nehemiah Rubitzov, born in a small
Ukrainian town in 1886, lost his father when he was a child and helped to support his family from a young age. At the age of 18, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the
Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion) Party and changed his surname to Rabin. In 1917 he went to Palestine with Hagdud Haivri (
Jewish Legion) volunteers, determined to settle in Israel. Yitzhak Rabin's mother, Rosa Cohen, was born in 1890 in
Mohilev in
Belarus. Her father, a
rabbi, opposed the Zionist movement, but sent Rosa to a Christian high school for girls in Homel, enabling her to acquire a broad general education. From a young age, Rosa took an interest in political and social causes. In 1919, she sailed to Palestine on the S.S. Ruslan, the bellwether of the Third Aliyah. After working on a kibbutz on the shores of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), she moved to Jerusalem.
Rabin grew up in
Tel Aviv, where the family relocated when he was one year old. In 1940, he graduated with distinction from the
Kadoori Agricultural High School and hoped to be an irrigation engineer. However, apart from several courses in military strategy in the
United Kingdom later on, he never pursued a degree.
Rabin married in 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence. Leah was working at the time as a reporter for a Palmach newspaper. They had two children, Dahlia and Yuval. After Rabin's assassination, Dahlia Rabin-Pelossof went into politics. In 2001, she was Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense.
Military career
Palmach
In 1941, during his practical training at
Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan, Rabin joined the
Palmach section of the
Haganah, and rose to the position of Chief Operations Officer in October 1947. He was involved in the
Altalena Affair, which he actively took part and lead the altercation. He was later condemned by many right-wing Israeli political figures.
IDF service
During the
1948 Arab-Israeli War, Rabin directed Israeli operations in Jerusalem and fought the
Egyptian army in the
Negev. In 1949, he helped draft an armistice agreement with the Arab countries that was signed on the island of
Rhodes. In 1964 he was appointed
Chief of Staff of the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Under his command, the IDF achieved victory over
Egypt,
Syria and
Jordan in the
Six-Day War in 1967. After the
Old City of
Jerusalem was captured by the IDF, Rabin was among the first to visit the Old City, and delivered a famous speech on
Mount Scopus, at the
Hebrew University. In the days leading up to the war Rabin suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to function. After this short hiatus, he resumed full command over the IDF.
Ambassador and Minister of Labour
Following his retirement from the IDF, he became a diplomat, serving as ambassador to the
United States beginning in 1968.
In 1973, he was elected to the
Knesset as a member of the
Alignment, and was appointed Minister of Labour.
First term as Prime Minister
On
June 2 1974, Rabin was elected Party leader and succeeded
Golda Meir as
Prime Minister of Israel.
Operation Entebbe was perhaps the most dramatic event during Rabin's first term of office. On the Prime Minister's orders, the IDF performed a long-range undercover raid to rescue passengers of an airliner that had been
hijacked by militants belonging to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's
Wadie Haddad faction and the
German Revolutionary Cells (RZ), and had been brought to
Idi Amin's
Uganda. The operation was generally considered a tremendous success, and its spectacular character has made it the subject of much continued comment and study.
Rabin resigned from office in the wake of two crises at the end of 1976: Four
F-15 jets were delivered on the
Sabbath, which led to the break up of his coalition; and it was discovered that his wife, Leah,
continued to hold a US dollar account from the days that Rabin was ambassador to the United States. According to Israeli currency regulations at the time, it was illegal for citizens to maintain foreign currency accounts. In the wake of this disclosure, Rabin handed in his resignation, an act that earned him praise as a responsible person and a man of integrity.
Opposition MK and Minister of Defense
Following his resignation,
Likud's
Menachem Begin was elected in 1977. Until 1984 Rabin was a member of Knesset and sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. From 1984 to 1990, he served as
Minister of Defense in several unity governments led by prime ministers
Yitzhak Shamir and
Shimon Peres.
When Rabin came to office, Israeli troops were still deep in Lebanon. Rabin ordered their withdrawal to a "Security Zone" on the Lebanese side of the border. The
South Lebanon Army was active in this zone, along with the
Israeli Defence Forces.
When the
first Intifada broke out, Rabin adopted harsh measures to stop the riots, even threatening to "break the bones" of the rioters. Later, Rabin's attitude softened and he became convinced that the only way to end the violence was though negotiation and dialogue.
In 1990 to 1992, Rabin again served as an MK and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. This time, he used his days in the opposition to compete against Shimon Peres for the chairmanship of the Labor party, a position held by Peres since 1977.
Second term as Prime Minister
In 1992 Rabin was elected as chairman of the
Israeli Labor Party. In the
elections that same year his party, strongly focusing on the popularity of its leader, managed to win a clear victory over the Likud of incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. However the Left bloc in the
Knesset won an overall narrow majority, facilitated by the disqualification of small nationalist parties that didn't manage to pass the electoral threshold. Rabin formed the first Labour led government in fifteen years, supported by a coalition of left wing parties and
Shas, a
Mizrahi orthodox religious party.
Rabin played a leading role in the signing of the
Oslo Accords, which created the
Palestinian Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the
Gaza Strip and
West Bank. Prior to the signing of the accords, Rabin received a letter from PLO Chairman
Yasser Arafat renouncing violence and officially recognizing Israel, and on the same day,
September 9,
1993, Rabin sent Arafat a letter officially recognizing the PLO on (See:
Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization letters of recognition.) During this term of office, Rabin also oversaw the signing of the
Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace (1994).
For his role in the creation of the Oslo Accords, Rabin was awarded the 1994
Nobel Peace Prize, along with
Yasser Arafat and
Shimon Peres. The Accords greatly divided Israeli society, with some seeing Rabin as a hero for advancing the cause of peace and some seeing him as a traitor for giving away land rightfully belonging to Israel. Many Israelis on the right wing often blame him for Jewish deaths from the sharp increase in terror attacks since the signing of the Oslo accords. Also, Rabin's government was kept in office with the tacit support of Arab-Israeli parties in the
Knesset.
Rabin was also awarded the 1994
Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by the late President's wife, Former
First Lady Nancy Reagan. The award is only given to "those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom worldwide," and who "embody President Reagan's lifelong belief that one man or woman truly can make a difference."
Assassination and aftermath
On
November 4,
1995, Rabin was
assassinated by
Yigal Amir, a radical right-wing
Orthodox Jew who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords and believed he was saving the country from a dire fate. The shooting took place in the evening as Rabin was leaving a mass rally in
Tel Aviv in support of the
Oslo process. Rabin was rushed to the nearby
Ichilov Hospital, where he died on the operating table of blood loss and a punctured lung.
The assassination of Rabin came as a great shock to the Israeli public. Hundreds of thousands of grieving Israelis thronged the square where Rabin was assassinated to mourn his death. Young people, in particular, turned out in large numbers, lighting memorial candles and singing peace songs. Rabin's funeral was attended by many world leaders, among them
U.S. president
Bill Clinton,
Egyptian president
Hosni Mubarak and
King Hussein of Jordan. Bill Clinton delivered an
eulogy whose memorable final words were in Hebrew - "Shalom, Haver" meaning "Goodbye, Friend."
Before leaving the stage on the night of the assassination, Rabin had been singing
Shir Lashalom (literally
Song for Peace), along with Israeli singer Miri Aloni. After he died a sheet of paper with the lyrics was found in his pocket, stained with blood.
The square where he was assassinated, Kikar Malchei Yisrael (Kings of Israel Square), was renamed Kikar Rabin (
Rabin Square). Streets and public institutions have been named for him all over the country.
After his assassination, Rabin was hailed as a national symbol and came to embody the Israeli peace camp ethos, despite his military career and hawkish views earlier in life. He is buried on
Mount Herzl. In November 2000, his wife Leah died and was buried alongside him.
Shortly after the assassination Rabin's granddaughter, Noa Ben-Artzi received about $1 million advance for a book on her relationship with him.
As with many political assassinations, there's much debate regarding the background of Rabin's murder. There are a number of
conspiracy theories related to the assassination of Rabin.
Commemoration
In 1995, the Israeli Postal Authority issued a commemorative Rabin stamp. In 2005, there were 14 neighborhoods; 24 streets and boulevards, two bridges; 36 schools and educational campuses; 11 gardens and groves; 7 parks; 13 memorials; a youth hostel in Jerusalem; a promenade in Binyamina; two complexes of government offices; three community centers and two synagogues named after Rabin.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Yitzhak Rabin'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://yitzhak_rabin.totallyexplained.com">Yitzhak Rabin Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
