[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 4 (Monday, February 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S257-S258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           MEMORIAL FOR ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER YITZHAK RABIN

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, two years ago last November, Israel lost 
its beloved Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and the world lost a great 
peacemaker. My son Patrick and I had the sad honor of traveling to 
Israel for the funeral. Like millions of people around the world, we 
admired his leadership and the power of his vision of reconciliation 
between Israel and the Arab world.
  On November 13, friends and admirers of Prime Minister Rabin gathered 
in Boston for a memorial service to commemorate his life and pay 
tribute to his leadership in putting Israel on the path to peace. His 
Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law, Israel's renowned poet Yehuda Amichai, 
and Israel's Consul General Itzhak Levanon gave voice to the grief of 
the world. As we work to carry on the work of peace in the Middle East, 
the guiding presence of Prime Minister Rabin is deeply missed.
  I believe my colleagues will be interested in the eloquent 
reflections of the speakers at the service on Prime Minister Rabin's 
life and death, and especially on his extraordinary commitment to peace 
in the Middle East. I ask unanimous consent that the remarks at the 
memorial service in Boston be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            Invocation by His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law

       To remember is at the heart of Jewish (and Christian) 
     faith. To recall God's covenant, His fidelity and His 
     promises, is a solemn duty which each son and daughter of 
     Abraham is asked to fulfill. Only by thinking back on what 
     God has accomplished yesterday, will we have sufficient 
     courage for today and tomorrow.
       In light of this profound religious conviction, we are here 
     to remember a life, prematurely snatched from us by the 
     bullet of an assassin--Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
       Because his death had so many tragic implications, our mood 
     may be dark and despairing as the one described in the Book 
     of Wisdom: ``. . . they seemed to be dead; their departure 
     was reckoned as defeat, and their going from us a disaster.''
       Wisdom confronts and challenges this earthly despair with 
     the emphatic reminder that, ``The souls of the just are in 
     the hands of God . . . they are at peace, for though in the 
     sight of men they may be punished, they have a sure hope of 
     immortality; and after a little chastisement they will 
     receive great blessings, because God has tested them and 
     found them worthy to be His.'' (Wis: 3; 1-6).
       We shall also never forget--but remember with undiminished 
     hope--Yitzhak Rabin's dream of peace between Israel and the 
     Palestinian people. The steps toward this peace which he took 
     with such great courage cannot be reversed, for both people 
     have gone too far along the path toward that day when the 
     pslamist's prayer will be answered.
       Let the psalmist's words be ours this evening:

     Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ``May they prosper who love 
           you.
     Peace be within your walls, and security within your 
           towers.''
     For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ``Peace 
           be within you.''

       Amen.
                                                                    ____


                       Remarks of Yehuda Amichai

       I would like to strike a rather personal note. There were a 
     lot of traumatic events for us, one event which has a lot of 
     trauma in it. Trauma number one is that it is the death of 
     our generation, the generation of people who grew up towards 
     1948 and we were in the Palmach, the commando unit of the 
     Haganah, and later the Israeli army. Yitzhak was already a 
     big commander there, I was a very small commander, and he was 
     actually the last of the Palmachniks to fall, many years 
     after the end of the war, and there had been about two 
     thousand out of six thousand that had fallen in the war, so 
     he was the last of us. And the second trauma is the trauma of 
     Jewish history, of ``milhemet achim'', of Jews killing each 
     other, and it brings up the whole traumatic event of the 
     destruction of the second temple, and we were hoping that it 
     would never be again.
       When Yitzhak Rabin received his peace award in Oslo, he 
     invited me and my wife to join him there, and he read this 
     poem which I am going to read, in his acceptance speech in 
     Oslo of the peace award.

     G-d has pity on kindergarten children.
     He has less pity of schoolchildren
     And on grownups he has no pity at all
     He leaves them alone
     And sometimes, they must crawl on all fours in the burning 
           sand to reach the first aid station, covered with 
           blood.

     But perhaps he will watch over true lovers
     And have mercy on them and shelter them
     Like a tree over the old man sleeping on a public bench.
     Perhaps we too will give them the last rare coins of 
           compassion that mother handed down to us so that their 
           happiness will protect us now, and in other days.

       And Yitzhak Rabin added to this poem his own words, and he 
     said ``Let's hope that now'' after the peace agreement 
     ``there will be pity for all of us.''
       He was already, I must say, he was already in his fighting 
     days as a commander of the Har-El brigade, he had already the 
     clear eyes of vision towards peace. While he was deeply 
     involved in winning that war against this vast Arab majority, 
     in his eyes there was something of a vision, very harsh and 
     hard vision of peace. While all of us were still involved in 
     war he was a very down to earth like our prophets. He never 
     was enthuasiastic or showed enthusiasm about peace, he was 
     always very inverted, and very much introverted, but he was 
     down to earth like our prophets. Perhaps the most famous 
     prophecy of peace in the bible is about the lamb and the wolf 
     shall lie alongside each other and not disturb each other. 
     They never, the prophets were down to earth, they knew that 
     love and peace may be far away, but at least you start by two 
     enemies lying alongside each other without disturbing each 
     another. And Yitzhak Rabin was one of those, that is why his 
     vision was so wonderful because it was down to earth. I would 
     like, I think that in a way, with Yitzhak Rabin, it is 
     perhaps the greatest trauma for all of us. It was as if, in 
     your American terms, Kennedy and Lincoln were murdered with 
     him again, because he engulfed everything--the beginning of 
     the state, and the middle of the state, the war and the 
     peace, our our national anthem is called Hatikvah, The Hope. 
     And I hope that we will still have, and his spirit will not 
     let our hope die.
       And I would like to finish with a poem that I read at his 
     first ``shloshim,'' first memorial in Jerusalem. And it is 
     about a friend of both of ours who was in the Palmach and who 
     fell back in 1948, and I wrote this poem and I think it fits 
     Yitzhak too.


[[Page S258]]


     And you, who remember only a face,
     Do not forget the outstretched hands, and the legs that run 
           so easily in the earth.
     Remember that even the road to terrible battles always passes 
           by gardens and windows, and children playing, and the 
           barking dog
     Remember the fruit that fell and reminded of its leaves and 
           the branch
     Remind the hard ones that they were soft and green in 
           springtime
     And do not forget that the first too was once the palm of an 
           open hand and fingers.

       May Yitzhak be forever.
                                                                    ____


           Remarks of Israeli Counsel General Itzhak Levanon

       A master in the skies, the Albatross was soaring high in 
     the air. Remaining airborne on motionless wings, and gliding 
     abreast the strongest winds with little effort. He was 
     watched from the land, flying majestically towards new 
     horizons. The sky was clear and the winds favorable. The 
     Albatross showed self-confidence, determined to reach new 
     heights, disregarding the dangers. None would dare to defy 
     him on his royal journey.
       Suddenly three gun shots fatally hit the Albatross. He 
     swung in the air, refusing to bend and hit the ground. He 
     looked toward the sky, which he has just conquered a few 
     moments before and whispered: why?
       Rabin was like this. He flew high in the sky, defied strong 
     winds, knew which direction to head and covered long 
     distances in a short time. He too asked himself, lying on the 
     ground, why? Why should a leader who dedicated his entire 
     life to the welfare of his own people, die like the Albatross 
     died? This question is still on the lips of every Israeli, 
     two years after his assassination, and will remain so for 
     years to come.
       Rabin's fatalism reminds me of another leader in the Middle 
     East--Anwar Sadat. He too disregarded the warnings. He too 
     believed that he was doing only what was right for his people 
     and therefore, there was no cause for one of them to harm 
     him. But both were so trusting, and both paid the price.
       I remember his face, full of happiness and satisfaction 
     that evening in Montreal, after a poignant speech at the 
     General Assembly where he spoke in all frankness about his 
     fears and his hope for the peace process. When we arrived in 
     this room he laid his eyes on his wife Lea, and, with a 
     typical Israeli expression said to her ``Nu?'' You could see 
     the joy in his face and how, with his timid smile, he wanted 
     to say `I am happy that they hear my words,' and how he felt 
     that he was not alone in his struggle. Indeed, battalions 
     were behind him.
       Senator Edward Kennedy recently wrote to me about Rabin, 
     and the absence created by his death, describing him in the 
     following words: ``The cause of peace lost one of its 
     greatest champions of our time, perhaps of all time, and I 
     continue to miss his leadership.''
       After Rabin's death, many poems were written. I have chosen 
     one of them, which in my judgment reflects the feelings of 
     most Israelis, The Tears, by Smadar Shir:

     There are left wing people and there are right wing
     There are religious and there are secular
     There are Sephardi and there are Ashkenazi
     There are Israelis and there are Arabs
     There are clever people and there are dumb
     But for all of them there is the same tear and the tears are 
           still warm, aching and painful
     These tears are for a great man, who fell down while trying 
           to reach peace between all these people.

       Many disagreed with Rabin's ideas. Others criticized him, 
     but none can argue the fact that for most Israelis he was 
     like a godfather, the one who took care of everything. He was 
     the mind which thought, the authority which made decisions, 
     the man who endorsed responsibility and the leader who did 
     not worry about damaging his standing if it benefited his 
     people. Rabin was a leader, but he was also the commander, 
     the diplomat, the politician, and most of all, the father.
       May the soul of this great man be blessed forever.
       Thank you.

                          ____________________