We flew to Washington for the White House signing of the Oslo Accords overnight, on an aging Israeli air force plane. It was the same plane Rabin and his staff usually took whenever he travelled as prime minister. His aides and the press were accustomed to uncomfortable nights cramped in their seats. Only Rabin, and his wife Leah when she travelled with him, had any comfort. The Prime Minister enjoyed a curtained off compartment with a bed. We would typically see him changed into pyjamas, saying goodnight, perhaps enjoying a nightcap, before disappearing into his compartment where he would sleep like a baby, arriving at his destination fresh and ready to work.

This flight was different. Rabin disappeared into his compartment as usual, whilst Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who never seemed to sleep, worked the media at the back of the plane. But this time sleep did not come easily to Rabin. I saw him come in and out of his cabin, visiting the restroom, looking for another drink, clearly more agitated than normal. The following morning, as I watched his hesitant handshake with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, it struck me how deep his reservations were about the commitment he was entering into on behalf of the State of Israel.

The news of the Oslo Accords, and Rabin’s endorsement of them, came as a great surprise even to those of us working in his team. It was unlike him to enter into an agreement that would put an element of Israel’s security into the hands of anyone else, much less into the hands of the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat.

Rabin was ‘Mr. Security’, whose determination to deal with terrorism was beyond doubt. Indeed, his uncompromising attitude to terrorists made life difficult for me, as his spokesman to the foreign media. The most notable event in the early period of Rabin’s term was his decision to expel 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives to Lebanon. When the Lebanese refused to admit them, they were left stranded on the border, leaving us with a public relations disaster. In December of 1992 he convened his staff to consider whether doctors from the Red Cross should be allowed to visit them. Thinking of the international media I urged him to agree, but he was not impressed. “Will this bring to an end the Intifada?” he barked. It was a revealing moment for me. I understood he was only really interested in what was right for Israel’s security, and how things looked to the rest of the world was a much lower priority. But I also understood how concerned he was by the Intifada, and the need to bring it to an end.

Watching this leader – for whom Israel’s security was everything – make the transition from reluctantly accepting negotiations with the PLO, at the urging of Shimon Peres, to becoming sold on the Oslo Accords, was fascinating.

This piece is from Fathom’s eBook The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, which can be downloaded here.

The eBook also features essays and interviews by Reuven Rivlin, Luciana Berger, Omer Bar-Lev, Michael Herzog, Sara Hirschhorn, Ronen Hoffman, Tzipi Livni, Einat Wilf, Sir Martin Gilbert and Shlomo Avineri.