Rabin was assassinated 15 years ago today. Bill Clinton is on the NYT op-ed page with a piece called, “Finish Rabin’s Work,” saying it is time to cut the two-state deal we all know everyone agreed on. A reader writes, “The only really interesting part is the indirect pop at Netanyahu (and Peres) when he says Rabin would have worked out a comprehensive deal within three years [of 1995] had he lived. Clinton presumably cleared this with Hillary Clinton. It’s probably not a big deal, but perhaps it’s a warning to Netanyahu that he better get with the negotiations. I doubt it, but it’s one possible interpretation. Clinton really was angered by Netanyahu. I don’t know if it’s entirely accurate to say Abbas approved a plan based on the Clinton parameters of 2001.”
Also, 15 years is a long time. Per Clinton:
The end of his life overlapped with the emergence of the most interdependent age in human history, the explosion of the Internet and the era of globalization. We are linked in so many ways that we cannot get away from each other…. Therefore, each in our own way, we must all take up the cause for which Yitzhak Rabin gave his life: building a shared future in which our common humanity is more important than our interesting differences.
FYI, it was on this basis that the late Tony Judt urged one democratic state. Seven years ago. Time flies.
