The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 marks a sad watershed in the history of the Middle East conflict. Yigal Amir, the right-wing Israeli student who gunned down his Prime Minister, attacked not only the man, but a dream to bring peace to our region.
It was ironic that Prime Minister Rabin died celebrating an agreement whose foundations had been laid by others: the 1993 Oslo accords that created the Palestinian Authority. His Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, had held talks with the Palestinian leadership in total secrecy under the auspices of Norway, and I could sense the Prime Minister's bemusement as he shook Chairman Yasser Arafat's hand on the White House lawn.
But Rabin was at the heart of negotiations with my brother King Hussein and me on another, groundbreaking accord, the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty. As officials from our governments hammered out the wider context of the agreement, it was apparent that Rabin shared with us and our team the goal of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace between Arab states, Palestinians and Israel.
I first met the then Ambassador Rabin in 1971, long before it became fashionable to hold meetings with "opponents." His character was forged as a soldier in what my brother described as "a difficult neighborhood." Perhaps those who have witnessed the scourge of war will risk far more to ensure their children are protected from it. What we were to develop was part of a framework for agreement on permanent status.
Rabin has been described as an unlikely peacemaker brusque, with a bluntness that offended some. But he realized that the millions of Palestinians living under occupation could not be ruled by force. His dual beliefs that Israel must negotiate and that it must give up land for peace did not carry the support of all his people. Nonetheless, he saw that these actions must come together for a lasting solution. Oct. 26 marked the 12th anniversary of the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty. Let us hope that all that effort was not in vain.
H.R.H. was deputy to his brother, the late King Hussein of Jordan