[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16725-S16726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REMEMBERING YITZHAK RABIN: WARRIOR FOR PEACE

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today with a heavy heart to 
remember one of America's greatest friends--my friend Yitzhak Rabin--
who was tragically murdered Saturday in Israel. His sudden death is 
even more shocking because he was assassinated just after making an 
impassioned speech for peace in the Mideast.
  Mr. President, Yitzhak Rabin was the strongest leader in today's 
world. Period. As he guided the ship of Israel through a sea of 
hostility, he forcefully led the troubled Mideast toward peace. We can 
only hope that we continue to seek the Prime Minister's goal--peace 
among Moslem, Christian, and Jew--and continue to turn away from the 
violence that always bubbles just under the surface in that part of the 
world.
  Yitzhak Rabin trained to be a farmer. Like one of our greatest 
Presidents, Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Rabin had the plain-
speaking, straightforward, blunt common sense of farmers. But also like 
Truman, Rabin's destiny led him to the army and to becoming a world 
leader whose strategic intellect was respected all over.
  Just 6 years ago, Senators Daniel Inouye, Jake Garn, and I spent 
several hours with Rabin when he was Israel's Defense Minister. To this 
day, I will not forget the time that Mr. Rabin spent showing us the 
intricate desert defense preparations made by Israel. His courtesy, 
combined with his intense attention to detail, made our mission a 
learning success.
  Mr. President, if there is one thing that I have realized in recent 
years, it is that Yitzhak Rabin was a warrior for peace in the Mideast. 
When Israel's security was in grave danger, he fought and led military 
battles, notably the Six-Day War in 1967. But over time, he came to 
embrace peace as the only way for Mideast stability.
  Just 90 minutes before he was gunned down in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister 
Rabin stood before more than 100,000 people at a rally to implore them 
to harvest the fruits of peace. He said, ``I waged war as long as there 
was no chance for peace. I believe there is now a chance for peace, a 
great chance, and we must take advantage of it for those standing here, 
and for those who are not here.'' A few moments later, he added, ``The 
people truly want peace and oppose violence. Violence erodes the basis 
of Israeli democracy.''
  Mr. President, today, in our grief, as we remember our friend Yitzhak 
Rabin, let us all look to his last words for the guidance to achieve 
the greatest legacy we can give our friend--a lasting peace.
  Mr. President, an editorial in today's edition of the State of 
Columbia is a fitting tribute to Prime Minister Rabin. I ask unanimous 
consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

          Rabin: ``Best in War, But * * * Greatest in Peace''

       Among the thousands who will experience the funeral of 
     Yitzhak Rabin in front of an international audience today, 
     the thoughts should be on the peace process the Israeli prime 
     minister was setting up when an assassin struck him.
       As Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said, Mr. Rabin was ``at 
     his best in war, but at his greatest in peace.''
       There was more truth than hyperbole in this. The man was a 
     warrior who served as chief of staff of the Israel Defense 
     Forces, overseeing the dramatic victory over Arab armies in 
     the Six-Day War of 1967. He had risen to this position after 
     more than 20 years as a soldier, a career that began in the 
     Jewish underground before independence, as a commando in 
     Haganah.

[[Page S 16726]]

       That victory gave Israel territory in the Sinai that was 
     released when Egypt's Anwar Sadat made peace with the Jewish 
     state. And it also brought Israel captured land that his 
     country is giving back now in negotiations with the once-
     hated Palestinians.
       Mr. Rabin's superb marks as a warrior helped position him 
     as a man of steel, one who could be depended upon to hold the 
     security of Israel foremost as he slipped into his role as 
     statesman.
       He became ambassador to the United States after the Six-Day 
     War. By 1973 he was back in Israel as a Labor Party member, 
     becoming prime minister in 1974 in the wake of the difficult 
     Yom Kippur War. He became the first sabra--native-born 
     Israeli--to serve as prime minister.
       A minor scandal helped send Mr. Rabin packing in 1977 when 
     the Likud conservative party took over for some years. Then 
     in 1984, he returned to government as defense minister in a 
     coalition regime headed by Likud leaders. His political 
     rehabilitation was kindled by the Palestinian intifada 
     (uprising) that began in 1987 and caused the defense minister 
     to order the breaking of limbs instead of shooting. 
     Ultimately, he lost faith in that policy, and came to believe 
     that territorial concessions to the Palestinians were a 
     requirement for peace.
       The election of 1992 restored Labor and made Mr. Rabin 
     prime minister again. An old Labor rival, Mr. Peres, became 
     foreign minister and soon started the Olso talks that set up 
     the first meeting between the PLO's Yasser Arafat and the 
     Rabin-Peres team at the White House. That was the beginning 
     of the current West Bank talks.
       Those discussions enraged the Israeli right. Right-wing 
     Israelis paraded effigies of Mr. Rabin as a Nazi officer or 
     portrayed him wearing a kafflyeh (Arab head dress). And so it 
     was that on Saturday, after a peace rally with 100,000 
     Israelis, a Jew broke a commandant never to shoot a Jew. Like 
     Egypt's Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin was killed by one of his 
     own people. In the assassin-filled Mideast, he is the first 
     Israeli prime minister to die at a terrorist's hand.
       Despite a seven-day period of mourning, the Labor Party has 
     already reestablished itself under Mr. Peres. Likud leader 
     Benjamin Netanyahu has lamented, ``We debate, we shout, we 
     don't shoot.'' But it does not appear that Netanyahu will 
     seek another election soon, although about half the populance 
     seems to be on his side. Among them are the zealots who must 
     be restrained.
       As the architect of peace, Mr. Peres knows the process and 
     the principal players. He can lead if he's not considered too 
     dovish. Maybe a Rabin is necessary to act firmly. Let's hope 
     not.
       Let peace, not war, be Yitzhak Rabin's legacy. His own 
     countrymen, more so than the 40 heads of state at his funeral 
     today, hold the key to this.

                          ____________________