On Rabin assassination anniversary, UN chief urges peace

Former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination 20 years ago is being marked this month, was “a heroic man of peace,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

Rabin’s legacy is the “realization that the path to true security and strength is through dialogue and compromise,” the UN chief said in a statement.

Ban lamented that “terrorism, expanding settlements and halting progress in implementing Israeli-Palestinian agreements have repeatedly shattered hopes. Today, the voices of the majority who support peace and oppose violence are being drowned out by inflammatory rhetoric and shocking actions by extremists on all sides.”

Offering his “deepest sympathies to the citizens of the State of Israel as they commemorate the life of a heroic man of peace,” the secretary general urged Israelis to reclaim what he said was Rabin’s initiative.

“Prime Minister Rabin dedicated his life to the security of his homeland. He died after courageously seizing on the need and the opportunity to embark on serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, recognizing that, as he said, ‘you don’t make peace with friends; you can only make peace with your enemies.’

“Rabin was vilified by many for that move, and then murdered by an opponent of the peace process just when it was at a moment of historic breakthrough,” he said.

Ban concluded, “I urge all parties to stand firmly against violence and incitement.”

Rabin, a former IDF chief of staff, was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by Yigal Amir, a Jewish opponent of the Oslo peace process.