It is hard for me to believe that 30 years have passed since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.
On November 4, 1995, an Israeli far-right zealot fatally shot the prime minister at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. As the U.S. Middle East envoy at the time, I worked closely with Rabin, who remains the most intellectually honest leader I’ve known. He knew what his present-day successor fails to see: When Israel ignores the concerns of Palestinians, the country undermines its own security. He was the rare Israeli statesman who understood that Israel can advance its interests and address the Palestinian cause at the same time. Indeed, he was killed because of his efforts to broker peace, a prospect his killer couldn’t tolerate.
Once Rabin had thought through a decision, you couldn’t argue him out of it. But he had the courage to admit his mistakes.
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