Photo by AP/Jacqueline Arzt

Photo by AP/Michel Lipc

When a Jewish assassin gunned down Yitzhak Rabin
five years ago, his struggle for peace survived. But the recent
violence in the Middle East has left his legacy riddled with doubt.

PETER HIRSCHBERG
Special to the Jewish News

Jerusalem

Ilt

uthie was one of Israel Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin's spiritual children.
Twenty-three when she moved to Israel
from the United States in 1980, Ruthie
went to the peace rallies and rejoiced when Rabin
won in 1992. A year later, she exulted over the
Oslo peace breakthrough.
Even after Rabin was shot to death by a Jewish
assassin on Nov. 4, 1995 — Ruthie also was at
that peace rally — she clung to the dream. She
kept it alive through three years of foot-dragging
on the peace front by hardline Prime Minister

Peter Hirschberg, a Jerusalem Report staff writer, wrote

this special report for Jewish Renaissance Media, parent
company of the Jewish News.

414

11/3
2000

6

Binyamin Netanyahu, and it burned brighter for
her when Ehud Barak triumphed in 1999 on a
pledge to continue the Oslo process.
But now, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of
Rabin's assassination, Ruthie's confidence has been
shaken by the violent, bloody showdown between
Palestinians and Israeli soldiers over the last
month, in which six Israelis and more than 140
Palestinians have been killed.
"Oslo," she says bleakly, "was supposed to build
a framework for peace in future generations. But
now 13-year-old Palestinians — the future genera-
tion — are out on the streets throwing stones. Our
partner seems to have chosen a path of violence.
That's not Oslo." She asked that her full name not
be used in this story.
Like most on the Israeli left, Ruthie still believes
there is no military solution to the Mideast con-
flict and that Israel cannot continue to rule over
another people. But she has started to think the

Top: Hundreds of thousands pack the newly
named Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Nov. 12,
1995 during a massive peace rally called to
honor slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin. Rabin was assassinated after addressing
a peace rally at the plaza, formerly called
Kings of Israel Plaza.

Inset: Memorial candles flicker in the night
outside the Israeli prime minister's official
residence in Jerusalem Sunday Nov. 5, 1995.
A portrait of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin hangs from a barricade that has been
turned into a support for various candles.
Tens of thousands of Israelis, many weeping,
many bearing flowers, silently filed past Rabin's
simple wooden coffin that Sunday, in a final
salute to the assassinated soldier, statesman
and man of peace.

