10 YEARS AFTER RABIN

Ten Years after Rabin Killing - Leslie Susser
As world leaders gather in Israel to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, Israelis are asking to what extent the killer's bullet changed the course of Israeli-Palestinian history. The legacy Rabin left is not simple. He was always defense-minded, a man with limited faith in the goodwill of Israel's neighbors and a conviction that only a militarily strong Israel can survive in the Middle East. For Rabin, the main strategic goal was to secure Israel's survival in a tough neighborhood. Peace was a means to that end, not an end in itself. In 1993, Rabin cautiously embraced the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians in the hope that it would lead to Israel's acceptance in the region, but he insisted that it be reversible: If the process threatened Israel's security instead of advancing it, he insisted, Israel would be able to revert to the pre-Oslo status quo. (JTA)

The Peace Arrangement of Rabin, the Theory of Sharon: The Map of Settlement Blocs Looks Like It was Taken from Rabin's Last Knesset Speech - Akiva Eldar
Thursday, October 5, 1995, was one of the stormiest days ever experienced in the plenum of the Knesset. The hysteria which culminated in the Rabin assassination pushed to the sidelines the contents of his most important speech on the Arab-Israeli peace process. It was the last one he ever delivered in the Knesset. Some say it was the speech of his life. Eitan Haber, who was the director of Rabin's bureau and his speechwriter, can recall only one occasion when Rabin referred to the map of the final-status agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. Rabin said on that occasion that the Palestinians would receive 50% - at the most, 60 to 70% - of the West Bank. Haber is absolutely convinced that Rabin was not prepared to hear of territorial concessions on a scale of 94 to 96% of the West Bank, as was proposed in the Clinton parameters, which Prime Minister Ehud Barak presented to the Israeli cabinet for approval in late 2000. (Ha'aretz)

Rabin's Legacy: In His Own Words (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's last address to the Knesset, 5 October 1995

We view the permanent solution in the framework of a State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six-Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution: (1) First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev - as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths; (2) The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term; (3) Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the "green line" prior to the Six-Day War; (4) The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.