The name that I picked for this project was, Yitzhak Rabin. I had not even the slightest idea of who this might be, so I had to do some digging. Born on March 1st, 1992 in Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine, now known as Israel, Yitzhak was a military soldier who became “Prime Minister of Israel in the year 1992” (Nobel Peace Prize). His main goal as Prime Minister was to “abandon the use of force in favor of negotiations to achieve peace within the Palestinians.” (Nobel Peace Prize)He was involved in secret meetings that took place in Norway in 1993, that stated “Israel was to withdraw gradually occupied territories and to grant the Palestinians self-determination.” (Nobel Peace Prize)These statements became known as the “Oslo Accords” and these were signed into agreement in Washington within the same year. It was in 1994 that Rabin won a shared third of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with “his own Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.” (Nobel Peace Prize)Rabin also fought in World War II alongside the British, with hopes to prevent German conquest of the Middle East. When this war depleted, Rabin had to fight against his former allies due to prevention of Jewish immigration into Palestine.
It was on November 4th, 1994 that Yitzhak Rabin attended a peace rally and was assassinated by, Yigal Amir, a law student who studied at Bar Ilan University. As we are aware, Rabin was a supporter of the Oslo Accords, and in opposition “some Jews saw the Oslo Accords as a betrayal” (CNN Oslo). So, on that Saturday night, Yitzhak Rabin was “shot in the arm and back by a Jewish man in his mid-20s who was allegedly affiliated with the right-wing extremist groups.” (CNN World)Right-wing also meaning, “Far-right politics” which is well known as a complete opposition to standard politics. They live in terms of extreme nationalism and ideologies, Amir was one of these Jews who felt betrayed by Rabin.
I believe that Yitzhak Rabin was definitely a peacemaker, not only for all of the wars he fought for, but for the reason behind why he was fighting. He wanted to get rid of forceful aggression and substitute that with compromise. I admire that, because I think if we came into conflicts not ready to kill, but ready to fix an actual problem with our words a lot less conflict would occur within our world. It also seems that those who support peace making become the victims of the forceful aggression mentioned before. Ironically, most get assassinated, just like Rabin. The supporters of violence I think know that deep down, getting rid of force will cause less conflict, and those people live off of arguments. They need violence, so they use it on those who disagree with them. Eventually, somehow, someway we will abandon force. Hopefully.
Works Cited
CNN, Cable News Network, www.cnn.com/WORLD/9511/rabin/index.html.
“Oslo Accords Fast Facts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 Sept. 2018.
“The Nobel Peace Prize 1994.” Nobelprize.org.