A Daily Analysis
By Marc Schulman

October 29, 2009 - The Rabin Assasination 14 Years Later

It has hard to believe that it has been 14 years since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. There can be no question that the assassin accomplished his goal. There has not been an Israeli leader since that combined Rabin's vision with the underlying trust of the majority of the country that he would not endanger the country. 14 years have passed and if I wanted to describe those years, I would call them the "14 wasted years'" We often forget why Rabin entered into the Oslo agreements - it was not a love of Arafat, nor was it his lack of attachment to the Biblical parts of the lands of Israel, rather it was his understanding that there was a danger over the horizons and that threat was Iran. He believed that the only way to undermine that threat was to gain a peace accord with the Palestinians and thus neutralize the long term threat.

Unfortunately, Rabin was right. However, due to his murder - not to mention the actions of many Palestinians, a peace agreement has not been reached, and we now stand close the precipice with Iran most likely achieving the capability of producing an atomic bomb soon. It looks clear that if there is an agreement between Iran and the group of 5, it will be on Iran's terms and will do little to stop them. The Iranians are for the moment asking for improved terms, as they believe that while the Europeans are willing to take a hard line, President Obama is more invested in reaching some sort of an agreement and is too worried about Afghanistan to take significant action. While no doubt the lack of any personal relationship between Obama and Netanyahu does not help the situation, the bottom line is that Rabin's fears are coming true and unfortunately he was prophet who once silenced was ignored.