March 1, 1922
Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s fifth prime minister, is born in Jerusalem to parents who came to Israel during the Third Aliyah. He is the first Israeli prime minister born in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).
Rabin plays a prominent role in virtually all of Israel’s first half-century. Serving in the pre-state Palmach and as a commander in the 1948 War of Independence, he leads the defense of Jerusalem. As chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, he coordinates the military in the June 1967 Six-Day War. After that war, he is appointed ambassador to the United States, a position he holds from 1968 until 1973.
Returning to Israel in 1973, Rabin is elected to the Knesset and serves in Golda Meir‘s Cabinet as labor minister. When Meir resigns in 1974, Rabin becomes prime minister. A 1977 scandal over the fact that his wife, Leah, maintains an American bank account, a violation of Israeli law at the time, forces him to withdraw as party leader and retire from the government, so Shimon Peres leads the Labor Party when it loses to Menachem Begin‘s Likud in the 1977 election.
During his first term as prime minister, Israel signs an interim agreement with Syria in May 1974 and one with Egypt over the Sinai in 1975. He also orders the rescue of Israeli and other hostages from Entebbe in Uganda in 1976. Rabin continues to serve as a member of the Knesset and is defense minister from 1984 to 1990.
In 1992, he again assumes the leadership of the Labor Party and becomes prime minister in June. During his second term in office, Rabin enters into negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, resulting in the Oslo Accords, and he signs a peace treaty with Jordan’s King Hussein in 1994. Rabin, Peres and Yasser Arafat share the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”
Rabin is assassinated November 4, 1995, after giving a pro-peace speech in Tel Aviv.
