Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin (יצחק רבין) (March 1, 1922 - November 4, 1995), was an Israeli politician and military general. He was the 5th Prime Minister of Israel, from 1974 until 1977, and again from 1992 until his assassination in 1995. He is the only Prime Minister of Israel to have been assassinated and the only one to have died in office.

Rabin was born in Jerusalem in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. He attended military schools and eventually, in 1962 rose to the post of Chief of Staff in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Following his retirement from the IDF, he became a diplomat, serving as ambassador to the United States beginning in 1968. In 1973, he was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party, and was appointed Minister of Labor.

In 1974, he was elected Party leader and succeeded Golda Meir as Prime Minister of Israel. This term in office was most famous for Operation Entebbe, in which, on his orders, the IDF rescued passengers of a plane hijacked as it left Israel.

He lost the 1977 election to Menachem Begin, but remained leader of the Labour party in opposition.

In 1992 he was once again successfully elected Prime Minister. He played a leading role in the signing of the Oslo peace accords, which created the Palestinian Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. During this term of office, Rabin also oversaw the signing of a peace accord with Jordan and the rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Yitzhak and Leah Rabins' Tomb (1998)

For his role in the creation of the Oslo Accords, Rabin was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. The Accords made him both a hero and a villain to different parts of Israeli society.

On November 4, 1995, Rabin was shot by the right-wing activist Yigal Amir after attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square. Mortally wounded, he died on the operating table at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.

Preceded in first term by: Golda Meir	Prime Ministers of Israel	Succeeded in first term by: Menachem Begin
Preceded in second term by: Yitzhak Shamir	Prime Ministers of Israel	Succeeded in second term by: Shimon Peres

Yitzhak Rabin

Further reading