11/5/2015 Yitzhak Rabin's Moral Answer to the Israeli Dilemma of Peace and Survival - US News times in your history been deserted. All Americans could take pride in President Clinton's splendid eulogy; in the uniqueness of America's compassion and friendship that extended beyond a calculation of narrow national interest; in the honor of the hand outstretched at a time of need to an ally and friend. The president rose to the moment. The hundreds of thousands of people who lined the roadside and saw the American delegation were clearly moved. Of equal significance was the roll call of certain ‘ Arab countries (excluding Saudi Arabia) and especially the emotional speech of King Hussein He alone, at the hime, of Jordan. His words referring to Yitzhak and e Leah Rabin as “my brother" and "my sister," which Muslims only reserve for one another, had the capacity to and the tears shed by both the king and his * - queen, made a deep impression on the Israelis d th d d d for their humanity and ability to overcome the persua e e wl € past. Here, clearly, were keepers of Rabin's flame e of peace, continuing a line that began with Egypt's d [ | t late president Anwar Sadat. an wary Srae IS O oe Itis hard for outsiders to appreciate the effect on accept a compromise. Israelis of the worldwide outpouring of sympathy and condolence, with some 80 nations represented at the funeral. The Israelis are a traumatized people. They have for so long been alone, so long believed they could not rely on anyone but themselves, so long expected the world to stay silent in their times of trouble. The extensive response resonates for a people who remember how the world closed its doors to millions of Jews in the 1930s. Their deaths in the Holocaust were but an obscene multiple of the deaths endured in the crusades and pogroms of earlier centuries when the Jews were betrayed by those who had the power to save them. Israel was to be the end of that vulnerable status of perpetual minority, an end to