Yitzhak Rabin was, without doubt, a statesman — and a leader who tran­scen­ded party politics, fac­tion­al­ism and the smallness of internal intrigue. He looked solely at the national interest and the affairs of the state. As the first prime minister of Israel born in the land, Rabin’s name is bound up in the defence and security of the Jewish state. Before he became IDF chief-of-staff and then prime minister, he commanded a brigade in the Haganah during the War of Inde­pend­ence, and played an essential role in securing the road to Jerusalem, which enabled Israel to keep its capital.

Rabin provided a link between the old, pre-state ways of ram­shackle defence by the tower and stockade, the reclam­a­tion and cul­tiv­a­tion of land through sheer enter­prise and labour, and the ensuing modern achieve­ments in economics and diplomacy in the middle decades of Israel’s existence.

He under­stood that a powerful Israel within defens­ible borders was key to the survival and revival of the Jewish people. He also under­stood that the state could not thrive or long endure from behind walls and instead had to look outward towards its neigh­bours and become an integ­rated, accepted member of the inter­na­tion­al community.

There was a ferocity in Rabin, an iron will to defend the security and peace of Israel and to see no further wars, for he knew war well. Rabin recalled in his accept­ance speech of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize,

at an age when most young­sters are strug­gling to unravel the secrets of math­em­at­ics and the mysteries of the Bible; at an age when first love blooms; at the tender age of sixteen, I was handed a rifle so that I could defend myself — and also, unfor­tu­nately, so that I could kill in an hour of danger.

But there was also a vul­ner­ab­il­ity to Rabin. He was known to blush easily, par­tic­u­larly when eliding the truth, and was prone to fits of nervous tension. A close aid recounted that on the flight to Wash­ing­ton where Rabin was to shake the hand of Arafat in front of the world and sign accords that would grant legit­im­acy to a nemesis, he was full of agitation, unable to sleep and was overcome by anxiety.

When it came time for Rabin to clasp the hand of Arafat, a man who had spilled so much Jewish blood, the sincerity and honesty of Rabin was laid bare. While Arafat — for whom duplicity and guile came easily — appeared to almost purr with delight during the handshake, Rabin’s face was of stone, betraying the gravity of the moment and Rabin’s inner conflict. He was signing the Oslo accords to ensure the security of the State of Israel, to chart a new path of peace, and to seize oppor­tun­it­ies in the wider region for cooper­a­tion and nor­m­al­isa­tion of relations between Israel and the moderate Arab world. But in accepting Arafat and the PLO as a peace partner, he would be rehab­il­it­at­ing ter­ror­ists into legit­im­ate political actors and facil­it­at­ing the return of the PLO lead­er­ship from exile in Tunis to within miles of sovereign Israel.

At the signing of the Israeli – Palestini­an Interim Agreement in Wash­ing­ton in 1995, Rabin turned to Arafat and beseeched him:

Chairman Arafat, together we should not let the land flowing with milk and honey become a land flowing with blood and tears. Don’t let it happen. If all the partners to the peace­mak­ing do not unite against the evil angels of death by terrorism, all that will remain of this ceremony are colour snapshots, empty mementos. Rivers of hatred will overflow again and swamp the Middle East.

The events of the ensuing years indeed reduced the high hopes of the Oslo process to the stuff of faded snapshots. The peace­mak­ing and signed agree­ments of the ’90s were surpassed by the sheer carnage of the second intifada in the first half of the next decade.

Whether the conflict would have taken a different course but for the assas­sin­a­tion of Rabin is one of the great impon­der­ables of modern history.

What is clear is that the assas­sin­a­tion of Rabin was a moment of great shame for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. That a great pioneer of the state should meet his end at the hands of another Israeli and Jew dealt a powerful blow to Israeli self-con­cep­tion and shattered any belief that extremism and madness were present only in Israel’s enemies.

While the assas­sin­a­tion of Rabin and the profile of his killer have perhaps made some reticent to dwell for any length of time on Rabin’s life and legacy, in reality his mark on Israeli society is inde­pend­ent of the cir­cum­stances of his death. This is also true of other great statesmen who fell to their own extrem­ists, Dr Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Ghandi.

Rabin’s final public words, spoken to an adoring crowd in Tel Aviv at what is now known as Rabin Square, were these:

This rally must send a message to the Israeli public, to the Jewish community through­out the world, to many, many in the Arab world and through­out the entire world, that the people of Israel want peace, support peace, and for that, I thank you very much.

We see today that, 25 years after that black day, Rabin’s message of peace directed at his citizens, and to the Jewish and Arab peoples, was indeed heard and his grand vision of a strong and secure Israel living at peace with its neigh­bours is being fulfilled before our eyes.

Jillian Segal AO is the president and Alex Ryvchin is the Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry