Yitzhak Rabin spent his last minutes on earth in a place that made him uncomfortable—the spotlight. He was doing something he did not normally enjoy—speaking to crowds in his wooden cadences, singing a song while all around him held hands. His longtime colleague and political rival Shimon Peres later said, "It was a happy day in his life, probably the happiest day," and perhaps it was. With every passing month, it was clearer that for all the violence and all the fear in Israel and the occupied territories, Rabin's policy of gradual reconciliation was not only succeeding; it also had broad popular support. "People really want peace," Rabin said at the Tel Aviv rally last Saturday night, and one of the reasons they wanted peace was that Yitzhak Rabin had come to want it, and brought his compatriots with him.
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