Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995 TAG: 9511070063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JERUSALEM LENGTH: Long
The host of world leaders attending his funeral at Mount Herzl Cemetery was testimony to the authority of the slain prime minister, a warrior who looked beyond his years on the battlefield to make peace with some of Israel's most intractable enemies.
The dozens of dignitaries from the Arab world who put aside their most fundamental differences with Israel to attend his funeral proved how radically Rabin helped change the face of the Middle East.
King Hussein came from Jordan to urge other Arab countries to take the road to peace. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt also made his first visit to Jerusalem under Israeli rule, as did ministers from Morocco, Oman and Qatar, countries without ties to Israel.
In a stunned Israel, Jews were still trying to digest the ugly fact that one of their own - a right-wing extremist opposed to Rabin's peacemaking with the Palestinians - had shot him to death at a peace rally.
In a day of tears and raw emotion, Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, saw a gleam of hope in the gathering of world leaders.
``This is the crowning glory of your efforts, all of us here together,'' Peres said. ``The man who murdered you will not be able to murder the idea that you carried.
``Farewell to you, my elder brother, the bringer of peace.''
Rabin's freckle-faced granddaughter, 17-year-old Noa Ben-Artzi, touched the hearts of those who heard her moving remembrance of a gentle man, a ``private hero'' not visible to the outside world.
``Ones greater than I have eulogized you, but none knew the softness of your caress as I, or that half-smile of yours that always said everything, the smile that is no longer there,'' said the weeping, auburn-haired young woman. ``You were, and still are, our own private hero.''
Leaving the podium in tears, she was comforted by her brother, Yonatan, dressed in an paratrooper's uniform and red beret.
In a region fumbling for direction, the Arabs' presence at the funeral was a powerful gesture of acceptance toward Israel. They put aside their differences over the disputed city of Jerusalem - the most sensitive issue on the Arab-Israeli agenda - to pay respects to a fallen peacemaker.
``I had to pinch myself to believe what I am seeing,'' said government spokesman Uri Dromi, noting the Arab robes and headdresses that dotted the rows of dignitaries.
King Hussein forged a strong bond with Rabin in decades of secret and open negotiations that culminated in a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel last year.
``You lived as a soldier, you died as a soldier for peace,'' said Hussein, who wore a red-and-white checkered Arab headdress. ``I believe it is time for all of us to come out openly and to speak of peace.''
Rabin, who led Israel to triumphs on the battlefield, then stretched out a hand of peace to his Arab neighbors, was buried with full military honors in a pine glade overlooking the volatile city where he was born 73 years ago.
His widow, Leah, sitting in the first row, wept through much of the ceremony, supported by her son, Yuval, her daughter, Dalia, and her grandchildren, Noa and Yonatan.
Only once did a smile cross her face, when President Clinton affectionately recalled how Rabin, never one for formality, had come to a black-tie dinner in Washington without the black tie.
Clinton called Rabin ``a martyr for peace but ... a victim of hate.''
Rabin aide Eitan Haber spoke last, reading from the bloodstained sheet of paper with the words of the ``Song of Peace'' that Rabin had sung at Saturday night's rally. Rabin put the paper in his jacket pocket just minutes before he was shot.
``Let the sun rise and the morning light our ways,'' Haber read. ``We miss you, Yitzhak.''
After Haber spoke, Rabin's coffin was carried about 200 yards to the gravesite. A blue-and-white flag with the Star of David was removed from the casket, which was then lowered into the grave. Members of the burial society scooped earth into containers and covered the casket.
A rabbi intoned the prayer, ``God, Full of Mercy.''
Peres and other dignitaries put wreaths at the grave, and hundreds of Israelis left flowers and pebbles, a traditional Jewish mourning custom.
The funeral began with a two-minute siren that wailed throughout the country in tribute to the man who led Israel in war as chief of staff, then led it to peace with the PLO and Jordan.
Life in Israel came to a standstill at the sound of the siren. Drivers stopped their cars, got out and stood in silence.
Rabin's casket had been brought from the bier where it had lain in state for 24 hours outside the Parliament building. Eight army generals and police chiefs loaded the casket on an army truck covered with black wood. The vehicle drove slowly through downtown to the Mount Herzl Cemetery, named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism and visionary of the modern Israeli state.
Israelis mobbed the cortege route to say farewell, including hospital patients who ran toward the street in their robes.
by CNB