Rabin Born: Soldier Turned Peacemaker

An Israeli prime minister shook hands with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, and thirteen months later, that handshake cost him his life. Yitzhak Rabin, the soldier who had fought in every major Israeli war since independence, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who believed peace with the Palestinians was treason. Rabin was 73. Born in Jerusalem on March 1, 1922, to parents who had immigrated from Eastern Europe, Rabin grew up in Tel Aviv and joined the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Jewish community in Palestine, at age 19. He commanded a brigade during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, leading operations to secure the road to Jerusalem. Military service defined his early career: he served as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 1964 to 1968, overseeing the stunning victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967. Rabin entered politics after retiring from the military, serving as ambassador to the United States before becoming Prime Minister for the first time in 1974. His first term ended in scandal when his wife's illegal US bank account was discovered. He returned as Prime Minister in 1992, this time with a mandate to pursue negotiations with the Palestinians. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, established a framework for Palestinian self-governance and mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. The agreement enraged Israeli nationalists, who staged increasingly hostile demonstrations. On November 4, 1995, Yigal Amir shot Rabin twice in the back at a Tel Aviv peace rally attended by 100,000 people. Rabin's journey from commanding the conquest of the West Bank to negotiating its partial return remains one of the most dramatic political transformations of the twentieth century.