+972 magazine - The myth of Rabin the peacemaker

These nuances, however, do not compensate for the fundamental problem with the way Rabin is revered in Israel and abroad. His persona as a “warrior-turned-peacemaker” is almost exclusively centered on the final four years of his life, five decades of which were defined by hawkish and militaristic views (Shimon Peres, Rabin’s rival-turned-ally, eventually received the same idolizing treatment). This cult of personality, dotingly crafted by the Zionist left in Israel and liberal Zionists in the United States, has particularly relied on a counterfactual argument: that had he not been killed, Rabin might have helped to bring about a two-state solution.

Ironically, the first person to dispute that narrative may have been Rabin himself. The words “Palestinian state” do not appear in the accords he signed, a fact that he and other Israeli officials were careful to ensure. A month before his assassination, Rabin told the Knesset that his vision was to give Palestinians “an entity which is less than a state” — a precedent to the “state-minus” advocated today by Netanyahu and outlined in Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” Rabin also insisted that the Jordan Valley would remain Israel’s “security border” — the very plan that drew international outcry this year, when Netanyahu pledged to formally annex the area.