The Defense Ministry has unveiled a number of rare recordings of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, 30 years after his assassination, the ministry revealed this week.
The recordings all depict Rabin in closed-door conversations and span a variety of topics, but focus mostly on the IDF and the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Military force, he explained in a General Staff meeting in 1976, is limited in its ability as a conflict resolution tool in the region, noting that it has failed to solve the problem despite Israeli military superiority.
In this, one can already see the seeds of Rabin’s later efforts as peacemaker, which culminated in the Oslo Accords, an attempt at creating a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Despite this, in a speech given in 1977, the prime minister further stressed the importance of having a powerful military.
“Israel without a military power will not exist,” he explained. “A policy that strives only for negotiations and does not simultaneously guarantee military buildup is a policy that has no right to exist.”
He continued, “No Arab leader believes that he has a chance, at least since the Six Day War, to maintain a political process without military power… no one has the ideology of giving up territory.”
Changing the IDF: Infantry will always be relevant
Rabin, who also had a distinguished military career and had served as IDF chief of staff in the past, also had much to say about Israel’s armed forces.
In particular, Rabin spoke highly on the importance of infantry in the IDF, and how it would always be relevant.
Speaking at a conference, he said that “If anyone leaves feeling that the infantry era is over, they are drawing a wrong, dangerous, and impractical conclusion. Therefore, the problem is how to make infantry even better.”