Autor: FIR | 7. 11. 2025
In this newsletter, the FIR commemorates a figure from Israeli politics who was prepared to initiate a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict in the 1990s. Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995), a Jew born in Jerusalem, was an activist in the Zionist movement, fought in the Haganah before the independence of the State of Israel, and pursued a military career. In the Six-Day War, he was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces. After the war, he became Israeli ambassador to the United States.
From the mid-1970s onward, he was elected to the Knesset as a popular figure for the Labor Party, became its party leader and later prime minister. From 1984 to 1995, he was Israeli defense minister, with a brief interruption. During the first intifada, he still acted with all military force against the Palestinian liberation movement. At the beginning of his second term as Minister of Defense, he attempted to reduce military tensions by first seeking a non-military agreement with neighboring Arab states. However, he had to accept that such agreements could only be reached at that time if an agreement was also reached with the PLO as the representative of Palestinian independence.
In the summer of 1993, the first direct talks between representatives of the PLO and the Israeli government took place in Norway. These negotiations led to the successful Oslo Accords. These agreements provided for the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as Palestinian self-government in these areas, with the Palestinians renouncing violence. The next step was to negotiate a permanent status for these territories. The agreements were signed publicly in early September 1993. At that time, the United States was considered the guarantor of this agreement. Consequently, another agreement was signed in Washington, D.C., in early May 1994, granting the PLO recognized limited autonomy for the Gaza Strip and the area around Jericho for the first time.
This agreement was seen as a breakthrough after decades of conflict in the Middle East. Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on the Israeli side and Yassir Arafat for the PLO were therefore awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
All parties agreed to continue the peace process that had begun in Oslo. On September 28, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, Yassir Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan, Egyptian President Mubarak, and US President Bill Clinton signed a second agreement extending Palestinian autonomy to the larger Arab population in the West Bank. The ceremony took place at the White House in Washington in the presence of numerous diplomats.
This peace process was welcomed by large sections of Israeli society. Under the slogan “Yes to peace. No to violence,” a mass rally in support of this policy was held on November 4, 1995, in Tel Aviv’s central square, at which Yitzhak Rabin spoke. On this occasion, Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead by a right-wing extremist religious fanatic Israeli. The assassination triggered a political earthquake in Israel. The peace process was suspended and a parliamentary commission investigated the murder. To this day, almost half of the report remains “classified.” Everything suggests that this report reveals the involvement of Israeli government agencies in the murder.
To this day, Rabin is not forgotten in Israel. On the anniversary of his death this week, around 100,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv for a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict. It was significant that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not attend this memorial rally for Rabin.
The FIR remembers this politician because he showed that even in the complex Middle East conflict, a peaceful solution is possible if all parties involved come together for negotiations on an equal footing.
