Today is yet another special day.  It’s Yitzchak Rabin Memorial Day.

Yitzchak Rabin was the 5th Prime Minister of Israel; while serving his second term, he was assassinated.  He had been the Chief of General Staff that was responsible for Israel’s victory in the 6 Day War (1967).  The next year (and for 6 more years), he served as Ambassador to the US.

When Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister, he took up the mantle (1974).  He was the signatory to the Sinai Peace Deal with Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and approved the Raid on Entebbe (which made Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother very famous).  In 1994, he, Shimon Peres, and Yasir Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize, based upon the agreement they signed to develop peace in the Middle East.  (Boy, we had high hopes then!)

That was when I had the opportunity to meet Yitchak. It was not generally expected that Rabin, a tried and true military strategist would ever consider a peace deal like he did. I recall the words that Rabin shared with me on a beach in Chaifa (Haifa)  more than three decades ago.  He explained why he signed the Oslo Accords and attempted to develop a peace process, “so I would never have to tell another Israeli mother that her child died fighting in a war”.    Peace was a much better alternative- as scary as that prospect was.

I was among a small cadre of American and Israeli business executives who had been selected to discern what sort of high tech/low tech/manufacturing entities would prove the most useful for this peace process to proceed.

Our goal was to consider positioning the entities along the border of the West Bank and Israel (this was the invisible ‘green line’ that denoted the armistice between Israel and Jordan that obtained from 1948 to 1967).  As such, the facilities would enable Jews and Arabs to  work side by side,  developing good neighborly relationships.  With good jobs and stable leaders, a true peace could have overtaken the region.

Prime Minister Rabin, and his erstwhile rival- Foreign Minister Shimon Peres- were hopeful that our group could pull this off.  It was a heady time, where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded them for the Oslo Accord, the promised peace process.  But,  Arafat was unable to develop a political structure to unify the various forces in proto-Palestine, couldn’t provide a corrupt-free entity to deliver a government or remove political (and violent) retribution and bickering, thereby squandering the hope of peace.

Despite the failures of Arafat, it was still a  heady, wonderful time.  That was until Yigal Amir murdered Rabin at what is now Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.  Yitchak was speaking at a rally to garner support the Oslo  Accords (the peace agreement mentioned three paragraphs above).

Turning the dream of peace into a nightmare of recriminations for years.

Ah, Yitzchak, would that dream have become reality.

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