ARCHITECT OF PEACE

"We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you-in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men," Prime Minister Rabin told Palestinians in 1994 as he signed the peace accord with Yasser Arafat in Washington. A reticent, tough-minded leader, Rabin was known as the principal force behind Israel's historic peace agreement with the Palestinians. The Army chief of staff who led the Israeli forces to a remarkable victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Rabin later served as Ambassador to the United States before being elected Prime Minister in 1974. In 1975, he established a back-channel communication with PLO leader Yasser Arafat, seeking a way to make peace, an effort that would bear fruit 19 years later. After serving as Israel's defense minister from 1984 to 1990, Rabin was reelected Prime Minister in 1992. "There are no good wars," Rabin wrote in his memoirs. Jerusalem Bureau Chief Lisa Beyer reports: "One of Rabin's main jobs during the 1948 war was to help break the Arab blockade of Jerusalem and to keep the road to Tel Aviv open and safe for Israeli convoys. For this purpose, the Harel brigade was formed, with Rabin at its command, and by the time the fighting was done, 70 percent of its members had perished. To this day, the government maintains the rusted remains of the convoys that didn't make it as memorials alongside the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. 'I remember the names of those who died inside those vehicles,' Rabin has said."