30 years ago, on November 4th 1995, more than 100,000 Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv to celebrate the signing of a peace agreement with the PLO to end the conflict between the two people and chart a way forward to two states, side by side. It was a joyous occasion with songs, music, and speeches from the Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It ended with a rendition of the peace anthem Shir leShalom, Song of Peace.
After the rally, as Rabin was getting in his car, shots rang out. Those shots not only killed Rabin but also killed the peace he had worked for, the peace he had agreed with Israel’s enemy, the peace that would have allowed both Palestinians and Israelis to live without occupation or the threat of wars.
The killing of Rabin came after months of demonstrations against the Peace Accord, led by Binyamin Netanyahu. These demonstrations included a coffin with Rabin’s name, a hangman’s noose, and calling Rabin a traitor.
On Saturday, November 1st 2025, Israelis gathered again in the same square, now named after Yitzhak Rabin, to call again for the peace that was killed 30 years ago. Again, there were speeches, not from Ministers this time but the leaders of the Opposition in Israel, calling for peace, and again songs, including an Arabic rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah sung by an Israeli Arab.
Now, unlike Rabin, the Prime Minister is not a veteran soldier turned peace maker, but instead the very same person who led the anti-peace movement 30 years ago, the person who has been Prime Minister for most of the 30 years since Rabin’s assassination, the person who has led Israel into its most disastrous war in its 77 years of existence, the person who has led Israel into international isolation, the person who has brought Kahanists into an Israeli Government, people who share the same ideology as the person who fired the shots that killed Rabin.
Maybe the 30th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination will be the time for Israelis to realise what they lost when those fateful shots were fired. Maybe they will realise that the path Netanyahu has led them on since 1995 has been one that has left Israel the most insecure it has been, the weakest it has been since Independence. Maybe they will realise, as Rabin did, that the only way forward for Israel, the only way that gives Israel security and certainty, is to find a peace with Palestine so that both can exist side by side.
I know that, for now, these are dark times for Israel and Israelis but seeing so many people turn out to remember Rabin and to stand up in order to make now what might have been 30 years ago come true gives me hope that Netanyahu and the Kahanists will not be Israel’s future, that instead these fascists will be remembered as an aberration on the road to peace, security and a brighter future for both Palestine and Israel.