Rabin, Yitzhak or Itzhak 1922-95
Israeli soldier and statesman, Prime Minister of Israel 1974-77 and 1992-95, and Nobel Prize winner

Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem and brought up in Tel Aviv. He was the older of two children of Nehemiah Rabin, a Russian-born immigrant to Israel. After studies at Kandoorie Agricultural High School, the outbreak of World War II forced him to abandon plans to go to the University of California to study engineering, and he embarked instead on an army career. During the war he took part in sabotage operations against the Vichy French in Lebanon and Syria. In 1954 he spent a year at Camberley Staff College in England. He fought in the 'War of Independence' (1948-49) and represented the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF, replacing the old Palmach) at the armistice in Rhodes. He rose to become Chief of Staff in 1964, heading the armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967, in which the territory of Israel increased over threefold. The credit for Israel's success in this war was due as much to Rabin as to the more widely acknowledged Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan.

After serving as ambassador to the USA (1968-73) he moved decisively into the political arena, becoming Leader of the Labour Party after the resignation of Golda Meir (1974). He resigned this position in 1977 and spent several years on the opposition back benches while Likud was in power under Menachem Begin. Appointed Defence Minister under the Likud coalition government (1984-90) of Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, in 1985 Rabin withdrew troops from Lebanon, which Israel had invaded three years earlier. However, he earned a name for harshness by his severe and at times uncharacteristically brutal handling of the Palestinian insurgents in the Gaza intifada of 1987.

In 1990 Shamir formed a more hard-line government, which fell at the beginning of 1992, having alienated all its friends including the USA. Rabin won back the leadership of the Labour Party and in 1992 was again Prime Minister of a centre-left government that favoured Palestinian self-government. In 1993, after secret talks in Oslo, he signed an accord with the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), granting self-rule to the Palestinians of Gaza and Jericho and stipulating a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces. In 1994 he signed a peace treaty with Jordan; the same year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat.

In 1995 he signed a second accord agreeing to further troop withdrawals from the West Bank and further expansion of Palestinian self-rule on the West Bank. These concessions aroused extreme and often violent opposition in Israel, and Rabin was booed and heckled at a number of public occasions. Finally, he was assassinated on 4 November 1995 by a young Israeli extremist while attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by his old rival, Shimon Peres.

Bibliography: Rabin's memoirs were published in English in 1979. See also D Horovitz (ed), Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier of Peace (1996); R Slater, Rabin of Israel (1993).