FAREWELL TO A PEACEMAKER : Clinton Tells Mourners to Make Peace Rabin’s Lasting Legacy

Here are excerpts from the eulogy for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that President Clinton delivered Monday:

Leah, to the Rabin children and grandchildren and other family members, President Weizman, Acting Prime Minister Peres, members of the Israeli government and the Knesset, distinguished leaders from the Middle East and around the world, especially His Majesty King Hussein (of Jordan) . . . and President (Hosni) Mubarak (of Egypt) for taking this historic trip here, and to all the people of Israel, the American people mourn with you in the loss of your leader and I mourn with you for he was my partner and friend. Every moment we shared was a joy, because he was a good man, and an inspiration, because he was also a great man. . . .

Today, my fellow citizens of the world, I ask all of you to take a good hard look at this picture. Look at the leaders from all over the Middle East and around the world who have journeyed here today for Yitzhak Rabin and for peace. Though we no longer hear his deep and booming voice, it is he who has brought us together again here in word and deed for peace.

Now it falls to all of us who love peace and all of us who loved him to carry on the struggle . . . for which he gave his life.

He cleared the path, and his spirit continues to light the way. His spirit lives on in the growing peace between Israel and her neighbors. It lives in the eyes of the children, the Jewish and the Arab children who are leaving behind a past of fear for a future of hope. It lives on in the promise of true security.

So let me say to the people of Israel . . . your prime minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. Surely we must learn from his martyrdom that if people cannot let go of the hatred of their enemies, they risk sowing the seeds of hatred among themselves.

I ask you, the people of Israel, on behalf of my nation that knows its own long litany of loss, from Abraham Lincoln to President Kennedy to Martin Luther King, to not let that happen to you. In the Knesset, in your homes, in your places of worship, stay the righteous course. . . .

President Weizman, Acting Prime Minister Peres, to all the people of Israel, as you stay the course of peace, I make this pledge: Neither will America forsake you. . . .

Legend has it that in every generation of Jews from time immemorial a just leader emerged to protect his people and show them the way to safety. Prime Minister Rabin was such a leader. . . .

Israel’s covenant with God for freedom, for tolerance, for security, for peace, that covenant must hold. That covenant was Prime Minister Rabin’s life work. Now we must make it his lasting legacy. His spirit must live on in us.