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Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin (20 May 1915 – 26 October 1981) was Prime Minister of Israel from 3 June 1974 to 22 April 1977, succeeding Golda Meir and preceding Shimon Peres, and again from 13 June 1992 to 4 November 1995, succeeding Yitzhak Shamir and preceding Shimon Peres. He previously served as IDF Chief of Staff from 1 January 1964 to 1 January 1968 (succeeding Tzvi Tzur and preceding Haim Bar-Lev).

Biography[]

Born in Jerusalem, in 1941, Yitzhak Rabin joined the Palmach (the elite section of the Haganah Jewish militia). In 1946, he was briefly imprisoned by the British for armed resistance to their rule in Palestine. In the First Arab-Israeli War he led a brigade in the battle for Jerusalem and fought the Egyptians in the Negev Desert. Intelligent and professional he earned an appointment as Chief-of-Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1964. He built up the IDF for an expected showdown with Israel's Arab neighbors and his planning lay behind the Israeli triumphs of the 1967 Six-Day War. However, Rabin, suffering from a nervous breakdown, had limited input into the conduct of the operations once the conflict began. He left the army soon after. Entering politics, he twice served as Israeli prime minister. A late convert to making peace with the Palestinians, he was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish opponent of the peace process.

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