"We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions." — Yitzhak Rabin
A few days ago, 100,000 people gathered on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv along with President Bill Clinton and a message from President Obama to commemorate the life and legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, who was the prime minister of Israel from 1974-1977 and again from 1992 until his assassination at a peace rally in 1995. Last night, students from J Street U gathered on the Plaza of the Americas to discuss similar topics and added a crucial question: How can we move forward with peace?
Rabin is an interesting figure in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process because he was assassinated by a radical right-wing Orthodox Jew who opposed the Oslo Accords, which was the peace process Rabin had been working on to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At a time when we are far from peace, and with so much violence right now, it is important to reflect on the point when we were closest to peace, how far we’ve come since then and what we can do to bring us closer to a resolution of this conflict.
Rabin is most notable for his work on the Oslo Accords, which outlined step-by-step measures to ultimately build trust and partnership and end the conflict through a two-state solution. However, since Rabin’s death, Israel has faced a number of internal and external challenges: the Second Intifada, or Uprising, which was a period of violent upheaval and terrorism in the early 2000s; a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon; three military escalations with Hamas militants in Gaza; an increase in settlements in the West Bank, which has resulted in almost twice as many Israeli settlers; an increasingly powerful and dominant Israeli political right and cycle after cycle of violence and tension between Israelis and Palestinians. What we don’t have is peace.
I’ve been in Israel during a conflict. I studied abroad in Tel Aviv during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the latest round of intense fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas militants in Gaza. In some ways, my life during the war was astonishingly normal. I still went to class, I still went to the beach, I still utilized public transportation and I stayed there willingly despite being pressured to evacuate. In other ways, war is as pervasive as one would imagine. People talked about death, bombs, tension and their fear of the "other side" endlessly.
They self-segregated based on religion and ethnicity and treated their once-innocuous peers as threats. That was the hardest part, even more than turning 20 in a bomb shelter, or watching hundreds of people run to limited shelter on the crowded beach or worrying about my cousin in the IDF. It was a constant reminder that in those 49 days, we were as far from peace as we possibly could have been.
Though it might seem strange for me to use "we" rather than "they," I do so because as an American, as a Jew and as someone who cares about human rights, I am deeply invested in actualizing peace in Israel and Palestine. If we care about the continued existence of the State of Israel, we can’t afford to be apathetic. If we care about the right to self-determination for Palestinians, we can’t afford to be apathetic. If we believe the relationship between Israel and the U.S. creates both power and responsibility for all of us to act to end this conflict, we can’t afford to be apathetic.
Yitzhak Rabin was crucially important in the history of this conflict. He understood that the conflict is detrimental to the future security and self-determination of both Israelis and Palestinians and acted boldly to try to implement change. Yitzhak Rabin, a lifelong military man, understood that military force is never going to equate with legitimate peace. He also wasn’t, and isn’t, alone. I know by working with J Street U and fighting for a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via a two-state solution, I honor Rabin’s legacy. I do this for the Jewish community I come from and for the Israel I care about because I believe that a 68-year-long occupation is both untenable and unjust.
Lane Sheldon is a UF English and political science senior.
