Recordings of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin published by the Defense Ministry on Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of his assassination illuminate the fighter-turned-peaceseeking-leader’s worries that instability and upheaval would always threaten Israel, even as the country deployed long-term strategies aimed at stabilizing its place in the region.

The nearly 50-year-old comments from the two-time premier, whose groundbreaking peace efforts were halted by an assassin’s bullet 30 years ago this week, show that the former army general may have been prescient in anticipating challenges that have continued to confront Israel in the years since.

Speaking decades before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel shook the region to its core and rewrote power dynamics in the Middle East, Rabin’s comments read as strikingly relevant as Jerusalem navigates how to reestablish stability in a radically changed military and diplomatic environment.

“Generally, the State of Israel has lived, lives and will continue to live on two parallel tracks: a track that requires planning, foresight, assessment of developments in the short, medium and long term, and the other, a second track of unexpected developments,” Rabin said in a November 1976 lecture, part-way through his first term as prime minister, included among the newly released audio files. “The ability to live at once, with a long-term view — the need to prepare, to plan, to act — between a track of long-term policy, and in parallel to be ready for all kinds of upheavals that the Middle East has always concealed… has been and will remain one of the main characteristics.”

In other recordings as well, including several addresses to the IDF General Staff from the 1960s and ’70s, Rabin repeatedly stresses the importance of pursuing a long-term strategic and political vision, even as it follows a parallel track of constant readiness for unexpected crises.

In one recording from a speech to military officers in 1977, he emphasizes the challenge of steering Israel between military might and diplomatic dexterity.

“Israel without strength won’t exist,” he’s heard saying, before adding that the country should still “shift from prioritizing armed conflict to opportunities for negotiations.”

Born in Jerusalem in 1922, Rabin rose through the ranks of the Palmach and the Israel Defense........

© The Times of Israel