Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995) is considered one of the greatest military heroes, statesmen, and peacemakers in Israeli history. A native-born Israeli, Rabin distinguished himself at an early age for his service in the pre-state Palmach, and as an officer in the War of Independence, when he commanded the IDF forces in and around Jerusalem and played a role in the Altalena incident. In 1964 he became the IDF’s Chief of Staff, and led the army to its extraordinary victory in the 1967 Six Day War. Beginning in the late 1960s he entered politics as a member of the dominant left-wing Labor Party. He first served as Prime Minister in 1974, in which he made the daring decision to rescue Israeli hostages at Entebbe. He resigned in 1977 and was succeeded by Menachem Begin. As Minister of Defense during the first intifada he initiated harsh measures to combat Palestinian violence. But during his second term as Prime Minister beginning in 1992, he pursued peace with Israel’s remaining enemy neighbors: the Palestinians, Jordanians, and Syrians. He signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians in 1993, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, and formalized peace with Jordan in 1994. His peace efforts generated enormously controversy on the religious right, and on November 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremists as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. His murder deeply wounded Israeli society, but his impact as a warrior statesman and peacemaker has far outlived him.