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CNN Live Today

Look Back at Life and Death of Yitzhak Rabin

Aired April 23, 2002 - 10:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take you back to a time in the early '90s when peace between Israel and the Palestinians finally seemed like it would be at hand. Then one of the chief architects of that peace was assassinated by one of his own countryman.

CNN's Bruce Burkhardt now takes to a trip of the loss that's still felt in the wake of the death of Yitzhak Rabin.

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BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Mideast peace agreement reached in Oslo and sealed with a famous handshake at the White House in 1993. It resulted in a shared Nobel Peace Prize the following year for leaders on both sides of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, and it may have signaled the last great hope for peace in the Middle East.

Earlier on, there had been other promising moments: Henry Kissinger's diplomacy that helped end the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and the Camp David peace accords in 1979.

But the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin helped turn the corner last time round, a career soldier who pursued a way not to fight.

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YITZHAK RABIN, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We who have fought you, the Palestinians, we say to you today, in a loud and in a clear voice: Enough of blood and tears! Enough!

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BURKHARDT: A major breakthrough, made possible by Rabin's willingness to allow Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank, which led to Yasser Arafat's return to his homeland.

The agreement angered many conservative Israelis, but Rabin continued to push forward as a principal voice for peace. He was speaking in that voice at a 1995 peace rally in Tel Aviv.

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RABIN (through translator): For 27 years, I fought for as long as there was no chance for peace. There is a big chance for peace.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The government of Israel announces with shock that the prime minister was dead, shot by an assailant in Tel Aviv this evening.

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BURKHARDT: It would be Yitzhak Rabin's last speech. Moments later, the first native-born Israeli prime minister was struck by an assassin's bullet.

His killer was not a Palestinian, but rather an Israeli, a man who said he feared Rabin was giving away his country to the Arabs.

Rabin's assassination was an extreme example of how the major forum for Middle East peacemakers has often been not the people on the other side of the table, but those on the same side.

After that famous handshake, Rabin said he hoped one day that -- quote -- "No one will photograph our handshakes, and it will become part of the routine of our lives."

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YASSER ARAFAT, PALESTINIAN LEADER: He's not only a friend now. He is a partner. The partner was me to make the peace (ph).

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BURKHARDT: Bruce Burkhardt, CNN.

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