When asked whether he can truly envisage a scenario in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads a distinctly right-wing government, would initiate diplomatic negotiations on a regional arrangement between Israel and the Arab states, Yuval Rabin says, “It’s not so far-fetched.”

In an interview with Al-Monitor before the memorial ceremony marking the 19th anniversary of the assassination of his father, late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he says, “Bibi [Netanyahu] was the one who talked about new regional opportunities — before and after Operation Protective Edge. That’s why he should be held to what he spoke about, and now is the time.”

This year, the main commemoration event on Nov. 1 at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv is being organized by the Israeli Peace Initiative, of which the younger Rabin was a co-founder in 2011, along with Science, Technology and Space Minister Yaakov Peri. Rabin will also be a main speaker at the rally, along with former President Shimon Peres. They will send a political message designed to push the government to launch a regional diplomatic initiative.

Will the rally reawaken the Israeli public and succeed in restoring hope for peace with the Palestinians? Rabin is convinced that so many years after the 1993 Oslo accords, the rounds of fighting in Gaza and Lebanon and the deep resulting budgetary shortfalls, “the Israeli public will understand that there is no other solution.” In that respect, the rally will measure the “Israeli street’s” willingness to reconnect with this agenda, which has eroded in recent years and is now perceived as anachronistic and naive. It is perceived as such to the extent that even the Israeli left distanced itself from this hot potato in the last elections.