Nov 3, 2025
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Q. With the perspective of three decades since the assassination, what in your view is Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy?
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A. A secure Israel. A democratic and Jewish Israel, based on Israel’s security dominance and balanced by a readiness to concede territory to the Palestinians and prioritize peace with neighbors like Jordan and Egypt. With Rabin’s assassination on November 4, 1995, the chances for realization of this legacy declined precipitously. None of his successors has proven up to the task. For a generation of Israelis, and for many Arabs as well, Rabin represents a lost opportunity for peace.
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Q. First and foremost for Rabin was security?
A. Rabin was a ‘security dove’. He never trusted the Palestinian leadership but realized early on that Israel had to separate itself from the Palestinians, physically and politically but not from a security standpoint, if it was to survive as a Jewish and democratic state. Way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rabin understood that Israel also had to resolve the Palestinian issue so it could prepare for the far greater threat posed by the Islamist regime in Iran. That concept, too, is part of his legacy.
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This is why he reluctantly embraced the Oslo process and (very reluctantly, see the famous photo on the White House lawn) shook the hand of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin never hid his readiness to remove West Bank settlements in return for peace with the Palestinians--indeed, he openly castigated the settlers (“propellors”) for compromising Israel’s territorial integrity and prioritizing religious ideology over security.
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But Rabin would not have endorsed the idealistic “New Middle East” slogan of his successor, Shimon Peres (and, at lease rhetorically, of President Trump today). That was not his approach to the region.
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This is also why Rabin understood the need fully to integrate Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens, inside the ‘green line’, into liberal Israeli society. In an extraordinary 1992 election speech in Nazareth, Rabin acknowledged to Arab citizens of Israel that the Labor Party he led had been “guilty of discrimination”. He proceeded to rely on Arab party votes in the Knesset regarding the Oslo agreement.
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Then, as now, this stance only added to the resentment of right-wing Israelis who thought the 1993 Oslo Accord was treason. Indeed, a Channel 12 survey taken just last weekend found only 51 percent of Israelis believing that Rabin’s contribution had been positive. All Israeli opinion polls of recent years find a majority opposing the emergence of even a demilitarized Palestinian state. Rabin failed to reverse the demographic and ideological right-religious drift of Israeli society.
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Yossi Alpher's Death Tango: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and Three Fateful Days in March
"Anyone seeking to understand how Israelis and Palestinians traded the hopes of Oslo for something approaching hopelessness is well-advised to read this book. With penetrating analysis and elegant prose, Yossi Alpher has told the gripping story of three days nearly two decades ago that continue to haunt would-be peacemakers. Yossi’s faithful readers will not be disappointed with his latest effort."
Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Bard College
"A riveting account of the crucial days in March 2002 when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was profoundly changed for the worse. The peace camp has never recovered from those wrenching days, and we live now without any hope of a just settlement. Alpher is a highly respected expert who has spent decades studying this conflict from both sides."
Bruce Riedel, Director of the Brookings Intelligence Project
"A critical assessment of a key period in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never before presented in such detail. The best and most capable players at the executive and political levels proved unable to forge any resolution, final or partial, because both parties continued to maintain an insurmountable gulf between themselves. This is a MUST read for anyone daring to tackle the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of Israel-Arab relations in general."
Efraim Halevy, former Head of the Mossad (1998-2002)
Oraib Khader and Avi Bar-On are youngish Palestinian and Israeli bachelors with security experience, readiness to do business with one another, a shared fondness for women and money, and total cynicism about the lack of peace between their two peoples.
Oraib and Avi can never become true friends: the cultural and political gaps are too wide. But as they confront a failed peace process and a bleak peace future, they readily become business partners: shady business that exploits a lot of naïve international peace aspirations.
As Oraib sums up on a visit to Sarpsborg, Norway, where the ultimately-failed Oslo peace talks were held, “There is a lesson here for those who still doggedly and hopelessly pursue a two-state solution in the Middle East. Get smart. Get out of the Israeli-Palestinian peace business. Step back and let the Jews and Arabs screw one another while making money.”