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BIOGRAPHY Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, by Itamar Rabinovich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. 272 pages. $25.
Reviewed by Ziv Rubinovitz
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated 22 years ago. His second term (1992-95) was consequential and dictates the political discourse in Israel and about Israel to this day. The Oslo process, which began in 1993, had been all but pronounced dead, but its basic logic - resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by partitioning the land, based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) - is as relevant as ever. The current Israeli government under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu might dislike this notion and can dismiss it, but the Oslo logic - and its projected end with a two-state solution - is the only viable option for the international community and dominates the Israeli political discourse.
This book's author - Itamar Rabinovich, a Tel Aviv University professor of Middle Eastern Studies, focusing on Syria - served as ambassador to the United States and headed the negotiation team with Syria under Rabin and after the latter's assassination on November 4, 1995. Rabinovich continued under Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, until he resigned after Netanyahu won the 1996 election.
In this capacity of ambassador/negotiator, Rabinovich had a unique view of Rabin. Chapter 6, "Rabin's Peace Policy, 19921995," is the most insightful and illuminating of Rabin's decision-making from one of his closest aides. The author provides a firsthand explanation of what happened during the negotiations with Syria and why they eventually failed. Particularly interesting is "Rabin's deposit," a hypothetical statement conveyed through United States Secretary...