Rabin, Yitzhak, << rah BEEN, YIHTS hahk >> (1922-1995), was prime minister of Israel from 1974 to 1977 and from 1992 until his death. On Nov. 4, 1995, he was assassinated in Tel Aviv, Israel. A right-wing Israeli university student who opposed Rabin’s policies confessed to the murder.
Rabin was born on March 1, 1922, in Jerusalem. He was the nation’s first prime minister born in Israel. Israel’s previous prime ministers were born in Europe. In 1941, during World War II, Rabin joined the Palmach, a unit of the Jewish underground army in Palestine. He was deputy commander of the Palmach in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war. Rabin headed Israel’s defense forces from 1964 to 1967. He planned the strategy in a 1967 war in which the Israelis defeated the Arabs and occupied the Arab lands of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
From 1968 to 1973, Rabin was ambassador to the United States. A Labor Party member, he was elected to Israel’s parliament in 1973. He became Labor Party head and prime minister in 1974, and held those posts until 1977. He was minister of defense from 1984 to 1990.
Rabin again became Labor Party head in February 1992. Elections in June brought the party to power, and Rabin became prime minister again. He appointed himself minister of defense. In 1993, Rabin’s government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed an agreement that included the start of a plan for self-government for, and Israel’s withdrawal from, the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel and the PLO also agreed to try to work out their conflicts. Rabin, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, and PLO leader Yasir Arafat shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for their peace efforts. Also in 1994, talks between Rabin and King Hussein I of Jordan led to a peace treaty ending a state of war that had technically existed between their countries since 1948.
See also Israel (The 1990’s).
