Clinton on Rabin; Dalia Rabin on Rabin

In a New York Times op-ed, Bill Clinton praises Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo process.

A decade and a half since his death, I continue to believe that, had he lived, within three years we would have had a comprehensive agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Rabin's daughter, Dalia, was less sure:

Interviewed in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on October 8, Dalia Rabin said, “Many people who were close to father told me that on the eve of the murder he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the terror that was running rampant in the streets and that Arafat wasn't delivering the goods. Father after all wasn't a blind man running forward without thought. I don't rule out the possibility that he considered also doing a reverse on our side. After all he was someone for whom the security of the state was sacrosanct. So they say that Oslo brought Arafat and gave them rifles and caused the intifada. But historical processes develop, change and flow. It is impossible to take a person murdered in ‘95 and judge him according to what happened in 2000” (‘Dalia Rabin: My father might have stopped Oslo,’ translation from Hebrew provided by Independent media Review analysis, October 8, 2010).

UPDATE

Letter to the Editor of the NYTimes:

To the Editor:

In his Op-Ed article, as he did throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton wrongly focuses his pressure on Israel to finish Yitzhak Rabin’s work, instead of focusing on the Palestinians, who, after all, are the ones responsible for destroying what Mr. Rabin started.

Yasir Arafat was present for the signing of the Oslo agreement, along with Mr. Rabin and Mr. Clinton — and he then proceeded to violate it wantonly, by sponsoring terrorists who murdered hundreds of Israelis and several dozen Americans, including my daughter Alisa.

I deeply appreciated Mr. Clinton’s condolence call to me, in April 1995, after Alisa’s death. I would have appreciated it even more if he had pressed the Palestinian leaders to extradite the killers. Sadly, pressuring the Palestinians never seems to be on Mr. Clinton’s agenda.

Stephen M. Flatow
West Orange, N.J.

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