Remembering Yitzhak Rabin's Impactful Speech at the Tel Aviv Pro-Peace Rally & a missed Opportunity.

Ian Miller
3 hours ago
6 min read

On the evening of November 4, 1995, the square outside Tel Aviv’s city hall filled with tens of thousands of people. The gathering had been organized as a pro-peace rally in support of the Oslo peace process, the fragile attempt to end decades of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The man at the center of it all was Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister and a former general who had become, late in life, the unlikely face of compromise.

The rally took place in what was then called Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. Organizers expected a crowd; they got a sea of people—around 100,000 by some estimates. Israeli flags waved in the warm night air. Speakers took the stage to argue that the Oslo agreements, negotiated with Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, represented the only realistic path to peace.

Rabin was not a natural orator. He had the blunt manner of a soldier and the gravelly voice of someone who preferred short sentences to soaring rhetoric. But that night he delivered words that would become famous:

“Violence erodes the basis of Israeli democracy. It must be condemned, denounced, isolated. I always believed that most of the people want peace, that many are ready to take a risk for peace.”

Those lines captured the strange position Rabin occupied. He had commanded Israeli forces during the Six-Day War in 1967 and built a reputation as a hard security thinker. Yet by the 1990s he had concluded that Israel could not rule millions of Palestinians indefinitely and remain both democratic and secure.

At the rally’s end something unusual happened. Rabin stayed on stage with other leaders and joined the crowd in singing Shir LaShalom (“Song for Peace”), a well-known Israeli peace anthem. Rabin had once disliked the song because of its anti-war tone, but that night he sang it anyway. Someone handed him the lyrics printed on a sheet of paper. He folded it and slipped it into his jacket pocket as he left the stage.

Minutes later, as Rabin walked down the steps toward his car, the evening turned.

A 25-year-old Israeli law student named Yigal Amir, an extreme right-wing opponent of the Oslo process, stepped out of the crowd. Amir believed Rabin’s concessions to the Palestinians were a betrayal of Israel and justified, in his mind, by radical interpretations of Jewish religious law.

He approached from behind and fired three shots with a pistol.

Two bullets struck Rabin in the back. Security officers wrestled Amir to the ground almost immediately, but the damage was done. Rabin was rushed to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Surgeons worked frantically, but the wounds were catastrophic.

Shortly after 11 p.m., doctors declared him dead.

Israel went into shock. Rabin’s death was the first assassination of a sitting Israeli prime minister and one of the most traumatic political events in the country’s history. Crowds returned to the square overnight, lighting candles and leaving handwritten notes. The sheet of paper from Rabin’s pocket—the lyrics to Shir LaShalom—was found soaked with his blood.

In the days that followed, world leaders gathered for his funeral on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Among them were Bill Clinton, King Hussein of Jordan, and Hosni Mubarak. Clinton ended his eulogy with a phrase that became inseparable from Rabin’s memory: “Shalom, chaver”—“Goodbye, friend.”

The square where the rally took place was later renamed Rabin Square.

The assassination didn’t just end a life. Many historians argue it changed the trajectory of the peace process itself. The fragile momentum behind the Oslo Accords faltered, Israeli politics hardened, and trust between Israelis and Palestinians eroded further in the years that followed.

Yet Rabin’s words from that night still echo in Israeli political memory: the quiet, stubborn belief of a soldier-turned-peacemaker that, beneath the noise and anger, most people still want peace.

When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, the killing did more than remove a prime minister. It removed the political figure who had both the authority and credibility inside Israel to push the peace process forward. Historians and political analysts often talk about the assassination not simply as a tragedy, but as a moment when several possible futures suddenly vanished.

No one can say with certainty what would have happened. But several possibilities were widely discussed at the time.

First, the completion of the Oslo process itself. Rabin had signed the Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat in 1993 under the mediation of Bill Clinton. The agreement was designed as a step-by-step plan: Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and parts of the West Bank first, followed by negotiations over the hardest issues—Jerusalem, borders, refugees, and Israeli settlements. Rabin was cautious but clearly moving toward a form of Palestinian statehood. Had he lived and won reelection in 1996, many analysts believe the final-status negotiations might have begun earlier and under more stable conditions.

Second, Rabin possessed something rare in Israeli politics: security credibility. As the former army chief who led Israel during the Six-Day War, he could argue that territorial compromise was not weakness but strategic necessity. A civilian peacenik saying this might have been dismissed; a decorated general saying it carried weight. Some historians think Rabin might have contained the backlash against Oslo more effectively than his successors.

Third, the 1996 Israeli election might have unfolded differently. After Rabin’s death, the atmosphere inside Israel shifted dramatically. Suicide bombings by Palestinian militant groups intensified, fear grew, and the political right gained strength. In that environment Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly defeated Shimon Peres, Rabin’s successor. Had Rabin lived, it is plausible that the political momentum behind the peace process would have remained stronger, possibly keeping the Oslo timetable intact.

Fourth, there is the question of Palestinian politics. During the mid-1990s, Hamas was violently opposing the peace process, carrying out attacks meant to derail it. Some analysts believe that if Rabin had continued the gradual withdrawal and negotiations envisioned in Oslo, the Palestinian leadership under Arafat might have gained more legitimacy, weakening militant groups. Others argue the violence might have continued regardless. It remains an open historical debate.

Fifth, the Second Intifada, which erupted in 2000, might have been less likely—or at least taken a different form.

By the late 1990s the Oslo framework had largely stalled, breeding frustration on both sides. If negotiations had progressed instead of stagnating, some scholars believe the political explosion that followed might have been avoided or softened.

Still, it’s important to remain cautious about historical “what-ifs.” Rabin faced enormous opposition even while alive. Israeli society was deeply divided. Palestinian militants were attacking civilians. Israeli settlement expansion remained contentious. Even with Rabin in power, peace was never guaranteed.

But many people who knew him believed something rare had emerged in the early 1990s: a moment when a war hero, a pragmatic Palestinian leader, and strong American mediation briefly aligned. The assassination shattered that fragile alignment.

In Israeli memory today, the square where Rabin died—now Rabin Square in Tel Aviv—often symbolizes that lost moment. Not necessarily a guaranteed peace, but a window when peace seemed, for a short time, politically possible.

Yigal Amir. The Assassin.

Yigal Amir (born May 31, 1970) is an Israeli far-right extremist best known for assassinating Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995. The killing, motivated by opposition to the Oslo Accords, shocked Israel and the world, marking a turning point in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Amir is serving a life sentence plus additional years for related crimes.

Key facts

Born: May 31, 1970 – Herzliya, Israel
Occupation (pre-arrest): Law and computer-science student, Bar-Ilan University
Conviction: Murder of Yitzhak Rabin; conspiracy to murder
Sentence: Life imprisonment + 14 years; no eligibility for pardon
Spouse: Larisa Trembovler (2004 proxy marriage); 1 son

Early life and education

Amir was born into an Orthodox Yemenite-Jewish family in Herzliya. His father was a sofer (scribe) and ritual slaughterer, and his mother ran a nursery school. After yeshiva studies, he served in the Israel Defense Forces Golani Brigade through the Hesder program, which combined religious study with military service. He later studied law, computer science, and Jewish law at Bar-Ilan University, where he became active in nationalist circles opposing territorial concessions.

Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

At a Tel Aviv peace rally supporting the Oslo Accords, Amir shot Rabin twice with a Beretta 84F pistol, fatally wounding him and injuring bodyguard Yoram Rubin. He was immediately seized at the scene and later confessed. During his trial, Amir claimed he acted under halakhic (jewish-law) obligation, a defense firmly rejected by Israeli courts. Judges described the murder as “more abominable sevenfold” for his lack of remorse.

Imprisonment and legal status

Initially held in solitary confinement at Beersheba’s Eshel Prison, Amir was moved to Ayalon and later Rimonim Prison under tight security due to threats and concerns he might influence other inmates. In 2001, the Knesset passed the “Yigal Amir Law,” barring any pardon or sentence reduction for a prime minister’s assassin. He has never expressed regret and remains imprisoned under strict conditions.

Personal life and public campaigns

While in prison, Amir married Larisa Trembovler by proxy in 2004 after lengthy court petitions. Their son was born in 2007 via authorized conjugal visits. Small right-wing groups periodically campaign for his release, though Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum have ruled out clemency.

Legacy

The assassination is viewed as a national trauma that reshaped Israeli politics and ended the career of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Amir’s act remains a symbol of the dangers of political and religious extremism in Israeli society.