by Shimon Peres
Rabin used the moment to call not just for peace, but for unity. “We have known many days of sorrow, and you have known many days of grief,” he said. “But bereavement unites us, as does bravery, and we honor those who sacrificed their lives. We both must draw on the springs of our great spiritual resources, to forgive the anguish we caused each other, to clear the minefields that divided us for so many years and to supplant them with fields of plenty.”
I spoke only briefly: to thank President Clinton for his support; to thank King Hussein for his trust; and, most important, to thank Prime Minister Rabin for his leadership.
“I shall do something improper and tell you about my own prime minister. He did a great job, with great courage and wisdom,” I remarked of Rabin. I added that it was in our dogged pursuit of peace that we had become more than colleagues; we had become kin. “We were born as sons of Abraham,” I said. “Now we have become brothers in the family of Abraham.”
Less than a week later, the promise I had made to King Hussein to bring together business leaders from around the world was realized—albeit hosted not in Jordan but in Morocco. During the year leading up to the peace treaty, none of my advisors believed that such an event would come to pass. Yet now the Middle East/North Africa Economic Summit opened in Casablanca with four thousand participants. It was the first time that Israelis and Arabs had the chance to meet together, not to negotiate peace politically, nor to keep peace militarily, but to build peace economically.
King Hassan II of Morocco had made available a special tent for King Hussein and me, where the leadership of more than a dozen Arab countries—along with leaders and businessmen from more than fifty other countries—could meet with us, and speak about their hopes, their aspirations, and their immediate needs in developing a New Middle East. What became instantly clear was that our efforts at peace had not just made collaboration with the Palestinians and Jordanians possible; it had opened up the entire region.
“The entire world is gradually evolving from a universe of enemies into an arena of opportunities and challenges,” I said in remarks to the conference attendees. “If yesterday’s enemy was an army threatening from without, today’s source of violence is principally the menace from within: poverty breeding despair.
“This is not a new philanthropy,” I emphasized. “This is a new business strategy, using purely economic logic. . . . Here in Casablanca, we are entrusted with the obligation to take the first step in transforming the Middle East—from a hunting ground into a field of creativity.”
•••
The march toward peace continued. We held several follow-up negotiations with the Palestinians, as prescribed in the Declaration of Principles. In May 1994, we signed the Gaza-Jericho agreement, which, among other things, established the Palestinian Authority. Within two months, Arafat returned to Gaza, where he was elected the Palestinian Authority’s first president. In September 1995, we signed an interim agreement with the Palestinians, known as Oslo II, which expanded Palestinian self-government in the West Bank, while setting May 1996 as the latest date at which negotiations over a permanent solution would begin.
But in spite of our progress, the mood had darkened throughout Israel. In its willingness to seek a peace agreement with the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority had made enemies of radical terrorist organizations that rejected any peace negotiation with Israel as illegitimate. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose leadership was furious at the prospect of any Israeli-Palestinian agreement, attempted to undermine the peace process through continual acts of unspeakable violence, including sending suicide bombers onto buses and into crowded neighborhoods and big cities, directly targeting civilians. The Palestinian leadership didn’t put a stop to the attacks. In some cases, they even helped coordinate them. There were bombings in April 1994 and then again in October and November, and then again in January 1995 and April and August. A growing coalition of Israelis, having abandoned hope for peace, had starting calling instead for a military response. There were protests and demonstrations, chants of “Death to Arabs” and “Death to Arafat” echoing through the streets, and demands not only for small-scale retribution but for war itself.
These conditions created an enormous leadership challenge for Rabin and me. The hope that sprang from Oslo was increasingly hidden from view, receding among some, dying among others. Women and children were being murdered in the streets, and yet we were still involved in ongoing negotiations, still working with a faction of Palestinians who understood the imperative of peace. We couldn’t abandon the effort, not after how far we had come, not after the commitment we had made to the children of Israel, and to those not yet born. And so we pressed on, together, with the understanding that if we were voted out of power, it would be because we stood up for Jewish values even in the face of impossible odds.
After so many years of rivalry and partnership, it was only during that summer that my respect for Rabin would become genuine admiration. He and I had become targets of vile attacks, not just in the media, but on the streets. Opponents dressed our effigies in Nazi uniforms and burned them. They marched in droves through the streets, at one point carrying a coffin meant for Rabin. It was horrifying.
I remember being told about one particularly shocking moment, as Rabin walked past the Wingate Institute in Netanya, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. The gathered crowd began to shout abominable things, swearing and screaming, and even spitting on the prime minister. Rabin didn’t change his pace or his expression; he walked past it all, head held high, giving off the aura of a man of conviction, a man too busy in his pursuit to be swayed by such vile behavior. He showed extraordinary courage in those dark days, refusing to back down no matter the personal price. In the months that would follow, I never saw him once cancel a meeting or appearance—indeed, I never saw him give up any ground to the forces of hatred. He simply carried on.
As violence at home continued to drain support for the peace process, Rabin feared that if elections were held, we were likely to lose. Recognizing that we had to recapture the enthusiasm for peace, and tamp down the preference for war, I suggested we hold a grand rally—a peace rally, one that would give us the chance to show the Israeli people that though the voices of peace were being drowned out by the shouting fury of the opposition, they hadn’t disappeared. Indeed, I believed that a peace rally had the power to draw those out who were afraid to raise their voices, encouraging more to do the same, which in turn could create a hopeful energy that would reverberate throughout the country. It could convince the people to believe again in the beauty and power of the future we were trying to make possible.
Rabin was anxious about the idea. “Shimon, what if it’s a failure?” he asked me in a late-night call a few evenings after we first discussed the idea. “What if the people don’t come?”
“They will come,” I promised him.
Rabin and I arrived at the rally on November 4, 1995, to find a scene beyond our wildest expectations. He was stunned to see more than a hundred thousand people, gathered together in peace, for peace, in what was then known as Kings of Israel Square.
“This is beautiful,” he said to me, once we met up at the venue and took our place on the balcony of city hall, overlooking the rally. It was there that we were overcome by the crescendo of cheering below. In the reflecting pool beneath us there were young Israelis jumping and splashing, smiling and dancing, a gorgeous reminder of what we were fighting for: not our own future, but theirs.
Rabin had truly been taken by surprise. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him—possibly the happiest day of his life. Across so many decades of working together, I had never heard him sing. Now all of a sudden he was singing “Shir l’shalom,” the song of peace, out of a songbook he held in his hand. Even at the height of our greatest achievements, Rabin had never hugged me. All of a sudden, he hugged me.
As our time at the event drew to an end, we got ready to leave. We were supposed to all go down together, but just before we planned to
depart, members of the intelligence service came in to speak with us. They had credible information that there would be an attempt on our lives, and for security purposes they wanted to change the way we had planned to exit. The intelligence suggested that the attacker was Arab; nobody could have imagined a Jewish assassin. When we were ready to go, they wanted us to walk separately toward our cars. It was not the first time we had heard such a warning; we had gotten used to staying calm in such circumstances.
Our security teams returned a few moments later to let us know that the cars were ready and waiting below. They wanted me to exit first, followed by Rabin. Before I turned to walk down the stairs, I went over to find Rabin. He was still happy as a child. I told him I was to leave first, and that I looked forward to talking about this triumph the next day. He gave me another hug. “Thank you, Shimon. Thank you.”
I started down the steps toward my car, as cheers continued to echo all around me. Before I entered my car, I looked back to see Rabin walking down the stairs about one hundred feet behind me. My security agent opened the car door for me, and as I bent down to get in I heard a sound that still wakes me some nights, all these years later—the sound, in quick succession, of three shots being fired.
I tried to stand back up. “What happened?” I shouted to the security guard. But instead of answering me, he pushed me into the car and slammed the door as the car screeched off into the distance.
“What happened?” I demanded of the security officer who was driving. “What happened?”
They drove silently to the headquarters of Israel’s Security Agency and ushered me inside, ignoring my demands for an answer. “Where’s Rabin?” I insisted once we finally arrived. “Tell me what has happened.”
It was then that I heard that there had been an attempt on his life. That he had been shot. That he had been taken to the hospital. But how severe the injuries, no one could say.
“Where is the hospital?” I demanded. “I am going there right now.”
“You can’t go there,” said one of the security officers. “Your life is still in danger. We cannot let you go back out.”
“You can talk of danger all you want,” I said. “If you don’t drive me there, I will go there by foot.” Realizing they had little choice in the matter, the security officers obliged and drove me swiftly to the hospital. When I arrived, no one knew if Rabin was still with us. A crowd had gathered outside the hospital, weeping, fearing the worst, praying for a miracle.
“Where is he? What happened to him?” I asked of the first hospital staff I could see. No one had an answer—just tears in their eyes. “Take me to him!” I shouted. In all of the commotion, the head of the hospital saw me, and I him, and suddenly we were rushing toward each other.
“Tell me what has happened. Please.”
“Mr. Peres,” he said, with a crack in his voice, “I am sorry to have to say, the prime minister is dead.”
It was like someone had attacked me with a knife, my chest laid bare, my heart punctured. I had forgotten how to breathe. I had just seen Rabin’s face, smiling like I’d never seen before. There was so much life in him, so much hope and promise. And now “Shir l’shalom,” our song for peace, was quite literally stained with blood—in the pages of the songbook Rabin was holding when attacked. The future we had fought for was suddenly so uncertain. How could it be that he was gone?
I turned and walked away from the doctor with a ringing in my ears, like a bomb had gone off, like I was surrounded by the chaos of war. Down the hallway I saw Leah, Rabin’s wife, standing at the epicenter of an unimaginable tragedy. I could see that she had been told the words I could not imagine Sonia having to hear: the worst is true.
Leah and I went together to say a final farewell. He had a smile on his face—the face of a happy man, in total rest. Leah approached him and kissed him one last time. Then I went up to him. In wrenching sorrow, I kissed his forehead and said good-bye.
I was so distraught that I could barely speak when the minister of justice came to me.
“We have to appoint someone prime minister, immediately,” he said. “It cannot wait. We cannot leave the ship without a captain. Especially not now.”
“When? What?” It was all I could muster.
“We will nominate you,” he said. “We’re convening an emergency cabinet meeting. We must leave the hospital and go there right now.”
We gathered together, holding a makeshift memorial for our fallen brother. All of the ministers agreed that I should take over as prime minister, voting on the spot to name me Rabin’s successor. It was the most alone I had ever felt.
We were a nation in shock, not only because our prime minister had been killed, but because of the man who had done the killing. He was an Israeli, a Jew—one of our own, an extremist so deluded and desperate to halt our progress toward peace that his cowardly murder of a national hero was a source of pride and satisfaction. His action—and the depraved enthusiasm of the group of fanatics who agreed with him—was beyond anything we could have conjured in the depths of our nightmares. All at once it was maddening and confounding and impossibly painful.
At times of great sorrow, we lean on each other, and so it was for nearly every Israeli. There were spontaneous demonstrations, not of protest, but of love, as thousands took to the street in vigil, lighting candles on behalf of our fallen leader. I felt as though the weight of an entire nation were now resting on my shoulders.
Rabin and I had been great rivals for decades, but had become great partners in recent years. As I said after he passed, it sometimes happens in life that if you are two, you are more than two. If you are one, then you are less than one. I was so much less than one without him. Without warning he was gone and I had inherited a country in turmoil. If I acted incorrectly, I feared civil war. How could I be tough on those who supported the assassination without fanning such dangerous flames? I had so many decisions to make, and so quickly, and the only advice I wanted was his. I was tortured by his silence. When I returned to the prime minister’s office, I couldn’t bring myself to sit in his chair.
But I moved forward, in his honor and on behalf of the vision for peace we had shared. There was still work to be done, a country to heal, a peace process to save, a generation of children on both sides of our borders, to whom we owed a future made better than our past. With so much at stake, I knew I had but one choice: to set the terms of the national agenda, and to make the hard decisions that leadership demands.
•••
The year 2016 marks twenty years since the end of my time as prime minister. When I had first taken the prime ministership after Rabin’s death, Israel was more unified than at any other time in recent memory—not because there was sudden consensus about difficult and divisive issues, but because the loss of Rabin had been such a painful collective blow. As the country mourned, Israelis rallied around each other and closed ranks in support of their new prime minister. Many of the senior leaders in the Labor Party tried to convince me to call an early election. They argued that we were occupying a narrow window in which Labor could maintain its governing majority in the Knesset. Before Rabin’s assassination, the conventional wisdom was that Labor would lose the next election because of the terror attacks. But now, in this moment of national unity, I was sure to win easily, and we were sure to remain in power.
I understood the political logic to their argument. It was clear and persuasive. But I did not see the decision as a political choice; to me it was a moral one. To call an early election was to choose to win power using the spilled blood of Rabin. There was no reality, political or otherwise, in which I would use his death that way.
Instead, I turned back to the work of peace, without Rabin by my side, but with his spirit in my heart. The second stage of the Palestinian negotiations had yet to be completed and, meanwhile, I had already sent Uri Savir to Syria to begin peace negotiations with Assad’s government under my direction. And because terrorism had become such a terrible impediment
to peace, I organized an international conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, where world leaders could discuss strategies to fight back against the threat. It was a hard and lonely time for me. My own party was frustrated that I hadn’t called an election. My opponents were criticizing me daily, accusing me of being an appeaser, demanding military actions that would surely kill the peace process. Hamas and Islamic Jihad were meanwhile launching attacks on Israeli citizens. In early 1996, there were five gruesome terrorist attacks in Israel, one after the other, each seemingly worse than the next.
Indeed, the week that the bombings began was the worst of my life. When I visited the site of the first terrorist attack in Jerusalem, I stood before a mangled and melted bus that, just hours earlier, had been transporting everyday people on City Line 18. It looked like the carcass of a slain beast, covered in glass and char and blood. I was too transfixed by the horror of the scene to hear the gathered crowd booing me. “Peres is a murderer!” someone shouted. “Peres is next!” screamed another. I told Arafat that terrorism was strangling the prospects for peace, while he professed to having no power to stop it. “I don’t think you understand what’s at stake. If you do not unite your people under one rule,” I warned, “the Palestinians will never have a state.” Still, the bombings continued. A suicide bombing in Ashkelon. Another at the Purim Festival in Tel Aviv. I went to each site, over the objections of my security team and staff. I felt it was my obligation as prime minister to be there, both for those who had perished and been wounded, and for my country, which needed to be seen by the world as the resilient place it had always been. But when I stood there in Tel Aviv, my home for so long, and saw its streets burned and bloodied at what was supposed to be a joyful festival, I realized that despite my hopes, the environment for peace had grown increasingly untenable in the short term. When elections were held in May of that year, Benjamin Netanyahu prevailed in what was a deeply painful defeat for me. Out of nearly three million votes cast, he won by a margin of fewer than thirty thousand votes—yet it was still enough to drive the Likud party to power and put an end to the chapter Rabin and I had written together.
