In the annals of Israeli history, Nov. 4, 1995, is a date that will be remembered for the most dramatic and significant breakdown in the state's democracy. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was a watershed moment: An Israeli assassin killed an Israeli prime minister to change Israeli policy and history. Twenty years later, one can say that the assassin Yigal Amir succeeded. He killed a leader, and along with him, his policies.

Rabin rose to power in 1992 hoping to bring about historic change and to alter the order of Israel's national priorities. Rabin was determined to make a long-awaited decision on a century-old dilemma: Should Israel aspire to a land stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean (and lose its Jewish and democratic character) or opt for a two-state solution (and lose part of the land under its control)? This debate had long polarized the Zionist movement and the newborn State of Israel, dividing people between the right-wing, pro-“Greater Israel” revisionists and the left-wing Labor Party movement, which opposed ruling over another people.

Early on in his tenure — together with his former political foe, Shimon Peres, who in 1992 became Rabin's political partner — Rabin decided in favor of the two-state solution. In September 1992, as Peres recounted to Al-Monitor, the two statesmen met at Rabin's home to mend fences and to decide on a modus operandi and division of tasks between the prime minister and his foreign minister. Rabin would be in charge of bilateral negotiations with the Palestinians, Jordan and Syria, and Peres would take on multilateral peace talks for cooperative relations in the region. Peres would also be involved in the bilateral Palestinian track. At the end of the meeting, the two men agreed, as Peres recounted, “It is time to make the difficult decisions on peace and land in order to spare the young generation the sufferings of conflict.” Several months later, the Oslo talks were underway, born in coordination between the two leaders.

In the end, Peres and his team led the way to and during Oslo. Rabin focused more on negotiations with Syria through US mediation, but was in the know from the beginning of informal Oslo talks and closely monitored the formal talks beginning in May 1993.