The Commemoration of Rabin's Assassination: The "No Peace Ever" Stage

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (November 4, 1995). As this writer has repeatedly emphasized, for many years now, the loudest voices during the commemoration of this anniversary have not belonged to those who claim that this assassination also led to the death of peace with the Palestinians since the man was seen, first and foremost, as one who sought peace. Instead, the balance has tipped in favor of voices that assert, among other things, that he was never a man of peace at all, and that the "Oslo Accords" with the Palestinian Liberation Organization primarily aimed at advancing Israel's regional security interests. In this specific regard, his successors among the Prime Ministers of the occupying state, especially Benjamin Netanyahu, are seen as continuing his path. This assessment is not limited to Rabin's political opponents, but includes some of those who were closest to him, particularly among his advisers.

In addition to this assessment, there were two emphasized points: first, when Rabin adopted the Oslo path, he had a strategic plan aimed at preserving the security of Israel as a "Jewish state" with "defensible borders," without any strategy related to peace. He viewed Yasser Arafat as a partner in suppressing Palestinian resistance and the Hamas movement, reasoning that he would eventually concede Jerusalem and the right of return for refugees and the 1967 borders and settlements in the "major blocs," otherwise he would only remain a ruler in Ramallah!

The second point is that Rabin was the first to foresee what has come to be known as the "Iranian threat," represented by Tehran's pursuit of nuclear capability and regional hegemony. In light of this, he saw the necessity of concluding normalization agreements with more of the confrontation states after the peace agreement with Egypt signed at the end of the 1970s and with what are called the "second circle countries," according to David Ben-Gurion's doctrine, amid unprecedented global developments, foremost among them the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Those who advocate this attribute claim that Rabin was acutely aware that such agreements could only be achieved through following the path of settlement with the Palestinians, which indeed occurred, leading to the conclusion of the peace agreement with Jordan and the initiation of Israeli-Syrian negotiations. In this regard, they point out that had Rabin been alive today, he would have been one of the strongest supporters of the "Abraham Accords," even though they were not concluded under the same path known as "Peace First," in a striking reference to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the official Arab position itself.

This assessment, at the same time, encompasses what Rabin represented in terms of positions and approaches regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He sought to establish peace with the Palestinians according to Israeli conditions and seemingly adhered to the slogan "Peace Now"; one could argue that this slogan peaked during his term after it was first raised following the peace treaty with Egypt. Since then, this slogan has transitioned through three models, each based on a different analysis of the situation in the Middle East, relying on its own fundamental assumptions regarding what can and cannot be done to change the reality of life in the country. The "Peace Now" model began to fade with the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. The second model is "Peace Later," which solidified significantly in 2003 when former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced what came to be known as the "Disengagement Plan" from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, culminating with Netanyahu's rise to power in 2009. The third model is "No Peace Ever," which began that year and remains the dominant ideological framework in Israeli politics.