FOR ISRAELIS OF YITZHAK RABIN'S generation, perhaps the single most valued quality an individual can have is summed up by the word dugri. The concept is quintessentially Israeli even though the term itself, somewhat ironically, comes from Arabic. It refers to a manner of behavior that is simple, direct, honest. It conveys the idea of placing substance before style, of stripping away layers of subterfuge, of making no attempt at pretense or deception.
More than anything else, Yitzhak Rabin's life can be seen as an object lesson in dugri. When Rabin spoke, whether he was being cold or sentimental, he said what he meant. He once expressed a wish that the Gaza Strip would simply drop into the sea and disappear. But he also possessed a simple, human eloquence. Signing the Oslo accords at the Washington ceremony, he addressed the Palestinians with the following words: "We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you--in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men." In action too Rabin believed in strongly pursuing a straightforward--if often difficult--policy. When it came to fighting the Arabs, he was prepared to go to great lengths (in 1987, as Defense Minister, he is alleged to have instructed his troops to "break the bones" of Palestinian demonstrators in the intifadeh). But he was likewise willing to go enormous distances in pursuit of peace. Last Saturday pursuit of that goal took him all the way to his grave.
During his lifetime, Yitzhak Rabin stood at the very center of nearly every major event in his nation's history. For that reason his own story, to a large extent, mirrors that of Israel itself. Four months after his birth on March 1, 1922, in Jerusalem, the League of Nations adopted the British mandate for Palestine, which affirmed Britain's commitment to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland. At age 15, Rabin entered Kadoorie Agricultural High School, convinced that the best way to serve his country "was to prepare myself to become a farmer." He graduated with that ambition still intact, but World War II forced him to postpone his plans to study hydraulic engineering at the University of California. Instead he joined the Haganah, the Jewish underground army (to which his mother had also belonged), and was swiftly invited by the swashbuckling Moshe Dayan, then a young commander, to join the Palmach, an elite strike force.
Within a month Rabin was participating in the daring sabotage raids for which the Palmach was renowned. In Syria his job was to slither up telephone poles and cut the wires so the pro-Nazi forces of Vichy France could not send for reinforcements. By 1944 he had been promoted to deputy battalion commander and had developed such a reputation as a shrewd military strategist that senior officers regularly sought his advice or opinions.
After the war the British government prevented the immigration of Holocaust survivors from Europe and forced the return of those who had already entered "illegally," actions that drew the wrath of Jewish settlers in Palestine. In the fall of 1945, thanks to his growing status in the Palmach, Rabin found himself a key participant in a dramatic raid to rescue 200 Jewish refugees whom the British were holding at the Athlit detention camp.