Yitzhak Rabin Quotes
I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.
Rabin, Yitzhak. "Address to the Knesset on the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement." 5 Oct. 1995, Jerusalem.
In the complicated and arcane Middle East, substantial majorities of Israelis and Palestinians both favored a two state solution, thus creating a Palestinian State out of the West Bank and Gaza. However, the Hamas terrorist organization won the majority of seats in the Parliament and formed the “government” of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas opposed Israel’s right to exist at all, as that position as well as virulent Anti-Semitic threats to all Jews in the world. Many called for Hamas to change their charter and crease their opposition to the right of Israel to exist. The President of the Palestinian authority called for new elections but Hamas refused. Thus Blair and other diplomats the world over were in a very difficult situation.
Most American Jews had have grown up with an Israel governed by Jews who came from Europe and were culturally and politically very similar to Americans and shared similar values. Almost all Israeli policies were comfortable and understandable t American Jews. However, in the 15 years prior to this quotation, a major political shift took place in Israel and the dominant political faction shifted to first and second generation Jews who were forced out of various Muslim counties of the Middle East. These Jews were much closer to Arabs and the Muslims of the Middle East culturally and actually shared many values like vengeance, intimidation, and group and family guilt to keep enemies in check. They also understand the Arabs at a deeper level that their European culture countrymen do and were much more pessimistic about any solution whereby the Arabs would accept a Jewish State’s existence. Their political approach to suppression of the Palestinians and maintaining security for the citizens of Israel and their disrespect for Arab humanity made many American Jews estranged from the Israeli leadership just as they have been estranged from the Arab leadership and culture.
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Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
