Wednesday 20 October 2010

Rabin was “Close to Stopping the Oslo Process”
by David M. Weinberg
Oct 20, 2010 - 01:59 am

Israel today marks the fifteenth anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin’s tragic assassination, with the usual festival of left-wing paeans to
the Oslo process that Rabin oversaw. But earlier this month, Rabin’s
daughter Dalia told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot (Hebrew, Friday
October 1; summarized in English in Ynetnews on October 14) that, prior to
his assassination, her father might have been close to stopping the Oslo
process.

“Many people who were close to father told me that on the eve of the murder
he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the terror that was
running rampant in the streets, and because he felt that Yasser Arafat was
not delivering on his promises. Father after all wasn’t a blind man running
forward without thought. I don’t rule out the possibility that he was
considering a U-turn, doing a reverse on our side.
After all he was someone
for whom the national security of the state was sacrosanct and above all.”
In his book The Long Short Way (Yediot Ahronot Press, Hebrew, 2008), Vice
Premier Moshe Yaalon wrote that Rabin told him a few weeks before the
assassination that, after the next Israeli elections, he (Rabin) was going
to ‘set things straight’ with the Oslo process, because Arafat could no
longer be trusted. (At the time, Yaalon was chief of IDF Military
Intelligence).

Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, surmised much the same thing in his award-winning book Yitzhak
Rabin and Israel’s National Security (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center
Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, pages 149-165). “At the end
of 1994, Rabin was very pessimistic about Arafat’s performance…. He told the
Knesset on October 3, 1994 that ‘(Arafat’s) results up until now have been
far from satisfactory – to use an understatement’… Rabin’s disappointment
with the policy, which was not initiated by him but for which he was
ultimately responsible, became more and more evident with the passage of
time and reflected the public’s wary mood toward the peace process… He did
not exclude the possibility that the Oslo agreements might not lead to
reconciliation. He was not sure that an agreement on final status issues
with the Palestinians could be reached… Yet he was caught in the dynamics of
a process no longer fully under his control….”

“Rabin wrote in 1979 that ‘there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the
risks of peace are preferable by far to the grim certainties that await
every nation in war.’ But even when many around him celebrated and were
bursting with optimism, he remained the eternal skeptic and pessimist. Only
rarely did he project enthusiasm and elation about his political path….”
“More often than not,” continues Prof. Inbar, “Rabin expressed his doubts,
his qualms about an uncertain future. He perceived an improved strategic
environment containing less chances for existential dangers, but he knew
that such military challenges still existed. He was unmoved in the belief
that an armed peace was the best to which Israel could aspire in the near
future. In an interview (in The Jerusalem Post on September 24, 1995) a
month and a half before his assassination, Rabin said that for at least the
next thirty years, Israel would have to maintain its military strength and
not cut the defense budget.”

Like the majority of Israelis, then and now, Rabin was willing to take risks
and give the peace process a chance, but he remained suspicious of his
partners and skeptical about the outcome. This is the true legacy of Yitzhak
Rabin, which is worth honoring and remembering today.
View this and other blog posts at www.davidmweinberg.com

--- On Tue, 10/19/10, Consulate General of Israel - Houston wrote:

From: Consulate General of Israel - Houston
Subject: 15 Years Later: Remembering Yitzhak Rabin
To: bernards@sbcglobal.net
Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2010, 3:30 PM

15th Anniversary of the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin Memorial

With an address from Member of Israel's Government Minister Yossi Peled

Thursday, October 21st 2010 6:30 PM

Kaplan Theatre, IW Marks Theatre Center at the Jewish Community Center of Houston

5601 South Braeswood

Rabin

RSVP for the Event Here


"I, military I.D. number 30743, retired general in the Israel Defense Forces in the past, consider myself to be a soldier in the army of peace today. I, who served my country for 27 years as a soldier-I say to you, this is the only battle which is a pleasure to wage-the battle for peace."

"אני, מספר אישי שלוש-אפס-שבע-ארבע-שלוש"

,רב-אלוף במילואים, יצחק רבין

,חיל בצבא ההגנה לישראל,צבא השלום

:אני,ששלחתי גיסות אל האש וחילים אל מותם,אומר

,אנו יוצאים למלחמה שאין בה הרוגים ופצועים ולא דם ולא סבל

."וזו המלחמה היחידה שתענוג להשתתף בה- במלחמה על השלום

( טקס הצהרת וושינגטון בקונגרס האמריקאי, 1994)

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Posted by Britannia Radio at 19:27