11/5/2015 Yitzhak Rabin's Moral Answer to the Israeli Dilemma of Peace and Survival - US News
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A Light of a Fierce Fire
Yitzhak Rabin's bravery in office helped create peace between Palestine and Israel.
By MORTIMER B, ZUCKERMAN | November 4, 2015
Editor's note: This editorial originally appeared in the November 20, 1995 issue of U.S. News & World
Report. By Mortimer B. The poet was once asked, "If your house was burning and you could save only one thing, what would you | Zuckerman save?" The poet answered, "I would save the fire, for without the fire we are nothing."
Mortimer Zuckerman is the chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report and the publisher of the New York Daily News.
It was Yitzhak Rabin's destiny not to be saved from the frenzy of a madman. But bullets cannot so easily extinguish what Rabin's bravery and vision ignited, the fire of Israel's commitment to peace. He might so easily have died in the din of battle, this man who made war when he had to. But he died instead amid the clamor of peace, with the acclaim of a mass peace rally of Israelis still in the air and still in his mind. It would be his last wish that the flame of peace, for which he gave his life, should not be dimmed by anger and despair. His state funeral, for all its sadness, was inspiring as an occasion for the vindication of his hopes, for a new dedication to Israel's security from America and for a demonstration of goadwill by some former Arab enemies.
[SEE: Editorial Cartoons on the Middle East]
President Clinton led a bipartisan delegation that included the congressional Republican leadership, former President Bush and former Secretary of State George Shultz, It was more than a respectful gesture of protocol. This was a statement of emotional and psychological support from the most powerful nation in the world to a small, isolated country, living in a perilous neighborhood and in a time of great national trauma: We do more than share your grief, we understand your fears; we will not desert you as you have so many
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