Grandfather Rabin Took Road To Peace
It wasn’t the soldier in Yitzhak Rabin that brought presidents and prime ministers to mourn his death. It was the peacemaker. It was the grandfather.
Grandfathers have lived long enough to learn what matters in life - granddaughters, for instance.
Monday, the most powerful leaders in the world looked on, many in tears, as 17-year-old Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof said: “Forgive me if I do not want to talk about peace. I want to talk about my grandfather. … Great men have already eulogized you, but no one has felt, like I have, the caress of your warm and soft hands.”
Two years ago, the hand a granddaughter remembers as gentle, the hand that had steeled Israel in some of its greatest military victories, reached out to take the hand of an enemy. As he made peace with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, said: “We have come to try and put an end to the hostilities so that our children, our children’s children, will no longer experience the painful cost of war. … We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough! We have no desire for revenge, … we harbor no hatred toward you. We, like you, are people - people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you in dignity, in affinity, as human beings, as free men.”
That historic handshake took more courage and more greatness of vision than any act of war, assassination or political denunciation.
Rabin had ample reason to hate Arafat, who had plotted years of terrorism against Israel and long had sworn to dislodge the Jews from their ancient, disputed homeland.
But Rabin had his eyes on the future. A future for his grandchildren. A future for the grandchildren of his foes, Arabs and Jews alike.
All of us who struggle in the muddy trenches of political debate can learn a thing or two from Yitzhak Rabin. He knew how and when to fight and debate. But he matured beyond the crude skills of confrontation to the complex challenges of mediation.
And all of us can take a warning from the impatient young man who imagined God was on his side and gunned Rabin down. No one this side of heaven is in more danger of being wrong than the one who feels so certain of being right that he hates and kills in the Almighty’s name.
Most of us never will have a chance to reconcile Palestinians and Jews. But in smaller dealings, any of us can choose to look with a grandparent’s perspective on the well-rutted fields of conflict and search for the road less traveled, the one that leads to life and peace.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board