In pre-recorded speech to Tel Aviv rally, US president pays tribute to PM, says ‘a bullet can take a man’s life, but his dream of peace will never die’
US President Barack Obama paid tribute to slain Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on the 20th anniversary of his assassination via video message on Saturday night, declaring that Rabin’s vision of peace remains “necessary, just and possible.”
In a pre-recorded message broadcast in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square where organizers said some 100,000 Israelis gathered for the memorial rally, Obama related the murdered prime minister’s legacy to the need to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“Those who loved him and love your country are praying that you make that decision. May God bless this country,” he said.
The rally on Saturday night, at the square that now bears Rabin’s name, will cap a week of commemorative events in Israel, which have included a state ceremony at Mount Herzl and a special Knesset session.
The Nobel Peace prize laureate who signed the 1993 Oslo accords aimed at resolving the decades long Palestinian-Israeli conflict was fatally shot in Tel Aviv at a peace rally on November 5, 1995, by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir at the same plaza that hosted Saturday’s rally.
As reported by The Times of Israel