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Photo: Reuters
Clinton believes in peace
Photo: Reuters

Clinton: Rabin's death prevented peace

Former US President Bill Clinton tells Israelis, Palestinians 'divorce not an option' in conflict, says he is convinced peace deal would have been struck within three years had Rabin stayed alive

Israel and the Palestinians would have completed a peace deal within three years had Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin not been assassinated, Former US President Bill Clinton said Saturday.

 

Speaking to a VIP gathering at the Yitzhak Rabin Center, Clinton said: "In the last 14 years, not a single week has gone by that I did not think of Yitzhak Rabin and miss him terribly," adding that "Nor has a single week gone by in which I have not reaffirmed my conviction that had he not lost his life on that terrible November night, within three years we would have had a comprehensive agreement for peace in the Middle East."

 

Clinton, whose energetic efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal collapsed, urged both sides Saturday to end their decades-old conflict, saying they cannot escape their common future.

 

"We are either going to hurt each other or we are going to help each other," he said of the two foes. "Divorce is not an option."

 

While president, Clinton had a close personal involvement in Mideast peacemaking. He presided over the signing of the historic first agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, and seven years later, he brought the two sides closer than ever before to a final deal. 

 

The former US president remains extremely popular in Israel, however, because he is perceived as being a genuine friend.

 

Clinton's own emotional last words to Rabin at his funeral - "Shalom Haver," Hebrew for "Goodbye, friend" - have been seared into the Israeli collective consciousness.

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.14.09, 21:41
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