Remembering Rabin
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day Yitzhak Rabin was shot by Israeli hardliners because he signed the Oslo accords in an attempt to make peace with the Palestinians. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4431728.stm)
In this day and age, Israel would be hard pressed to find a leader like Rabin; a man who went from being an absolute hawk while serving as Chairman of the Israeli Joint Chief of staff, to eventually coming around to seeing the necessity of actually negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
Rabin, through his life remained an interesting figure to peg down. Despite signing the Oslo agreements, it was only under the prodding of then US President Bill Clinton that he was willing to publicly shake the hand of then PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
It is impossible to say that Rabin was perfect. He was not without his personal prejudices - but the fact that he was willing to overcome many of them and attempt to make peace, speaks to the better characteristics of many Israeli’s. Rabin understood he had to compromise and do certain things he found distasteful in order to broker peace - and this speaks to his wisdom in leadership and strength as man more than anything else does.
Both Israel and Palestine (as it is) are much different places from what they were 10 years ago. Oslo at the time looked like a big step towards peace, and it seemed to be the start of a new era in which Israeli's and Palestinians might actually be able to live side by side. This was in the end, Rabin's greatest miscalculation - his belief that he could get all of the Israeli public behind his drive for peace.
Rabin's assassination marked one of the most tragic moments in the last 10 years, and the peace process has never really recovered. People fault the Palestinians and specifically Arafat for halting the peace process, especially for turning down the deal offered to him by Ehud Barak in 1999. The problem with this is that, Barak has such a wide coalition there is absolutely no way he could deliver the goods he was offering. This is not to say that it was not wrong for Arafat not to take the deal, I hold to my belief that Arafat's personal level of corruption and the absolute joke that he tried to pass off as leadership for Palestinians did not have something to do with it, but all the same, Barak would have seen himself drawn and quartered in many of the more militant Israeli quarters for what he was trying to offer.
Today, Arafat is dead and Abbas has been proving himself to be a responsible leader, though he does seem to lack authority to a certain extent. This is not to say that he is not a welcome change towards moderation for the Palestinians. Israeli politics at the same time have swung to the hard right. The question in Israel has become, will the militant Ariel Sharon remain prime minister or will it be Netanyahu again, who strikes me as being, if anything, possibly worse than Sharon.
There still remains hope. The fact that many more moderate Israelis ten years later have turned out to remember Rabin, and the spirit of compromise that he brought to the table; and that they are willing to acknowledge the national shame that was Rabin’s assassination certainly speaks to the remaining spirit of compromise that exists among many Israelis - a spirit that in the end gives me hope that one day we may live to see an end to this conflict.
In this day and age, Israel would be hard pressed to find a leader like Rabin; a man who went from being an absolute hawk while serving as Chairman of the Israeli Joint Chief of staff, to eventually coming around to seeing the necessity of actually negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
Rabin, through his life remained an interesting figure to peg down. Despite signing the Oslo agreements, it was only under the prodding of then US President Bill Clinton that he was willing to publicly shake the hand of then PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
It is impossible to say that Rabin was perfect. He was not without his personal prejudices - but the fact that he was willing to overcome many of them and attempt to make peace, speaks to the better characteristics of many Israeli’s. Rabin understood he had to compromise and do certain things he found distasteful in order to broker peace - and this speaks to his wisdom in leadership and strength as man more than anything else does.
Both Israel and Palestine (as it is) are much different places from what they were 10 years ago. Oslo at the time looked like a big step towards peace, and it seemed to be the start of a new era in which Israeli's and Palestinians might actually be able to live side by side. This was in the end, Rabin's greatest miscalculation - his belief that he could get all of the Israeli public behind his drive for peace.
Rabin's assassination marked one of the most tragic moments in the last 10 years, and the peace process has never really recovered. People fault the Palestinians and specifically Arafat for halting the peace process, especially for turning down the deal offered to him by Ehud Barak in 1999. The problem with this is that, Barak has such a wide coalition there is absolutely no way he could deliver the goods he was offering. This is not to say that it was not wrong for Arafat not to take the deal, I hold to my belief that Arafat's personal level of corruption and the absolute joke that he tried to pass off as leadership for Palestinians did not have something to do with it, but all the same, Barak would have seen himself drawn and quartered in many of the more militant Israeli quarters for what he was trying to offer.
Today, Arafat is dead and Abbas has been proving himself to be a responsible leader, though he does seem to lack authority to a certain extent. This is not to say that he is not a welcome change towards moderation for the Palestinians. Israeli politics at the same time have swung to the hard right. The question in Israel has become, will the militant Ariel Sharon remain prime minister or will it be Netanyahu again, who strikes me as being, if anything, possibly worse than Sharon.
There still remains hope. The fact that many more moderate Israelis ten years later have turned out to remember Rabin, and the spirit of compromise that he brought to the table; and that they are willing to acknowledge the national shame that was Rabin’s assassination certainly speaks to the remaining spirit of compromise that exists among many Israelis - a spirit that in the end gives me hope that one day we may live to see an end to this conflict.