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Yitzhak Rabin (/rəˈbiːn/;^[1] Hebrew: יִצְחָק רַבִּין, IPA: [jitsˈχak ʁaˈbin] ^ⓘ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995.

Rabin was born in Jerusalem to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and was raised in a Labor Zionist household. He learned agriculture in school and excelled as a student. He led a 27-year career as a soldier and ultimately attained the rank of Rav Aluf. As a teenager he joined the Palmach, the commando force of the Yishuv. He eventually rose through its ranks to become its chief of operations during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces in late 1948 and continued to rise as a promising officer. He helped shape the training doctrine of the IDF in the early 1950s, and led the IDF’s Operations Directorate from 1959 to 1963. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1964 and oversaw Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Rabin served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973, during a period of deepening U.S.–Israel ties. He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974 after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israel’s minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada.

In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, who opposed the terms of the Oslo Accords. Amir was convicted of Rabin’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated, and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

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Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat (/ˈærəfæt/, US also /ˈɑːrəfɑːt/;^[2] August 1929 – November 2004) was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004.^[3] Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.

Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth and studied at the University of King Fuad I. While a student, he embraced Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following the defeat of Arab forces, Arafat returned to Cairo and served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956.

In the latter part of the 1950s, Arafat co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organization seeking the removal of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Fatah operated within several Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets. In the latter part of the 1960s Arafat’s profile grew; in 1967 he joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Fatah’s growing presence in Jordan resulted in military clashes with King Hussein‘s Jordanian government and in the early 1970s it relocated to Lebanon. There, Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, resulting in the organization becoming a major target of Israeli invasions during the 1978 South Lebanon conflict and 1982 Lebanon War.

From 1983 to 1993, Arafat based himself in Tunisia, and began to shift his approach from open conflict with the Israelis to negotiation. In 1988, he acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and sought a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1994, he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City and promoting self-governance for the Palestinian territories. He engaged in a series of negotiations with the Israeli government to end the conflict between it and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summit. The success of the negotiations in Oslo led to Arafat being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, in 1994. At the time, Fatah’s support among the Palestinians declined with the growth of Hamas and other militant rivals. In late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat fell into a coma and died. While the cause of Arafat’s death has remained the subject of speculation, investigations by Russian and French teams determined no foul play was involved.^[4][5][6]

Palestinians generally view him as a martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people. Israelis regarded him as a terrorist.^{[7][8][9][10]} Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO leftists, frequently denounced him as corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government.

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