Rabin's Career

Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth and ninth Prime Minister of Israel, was the country's only Israeli-born prime minister.

1922: Born in Jerusalem, the son of a Ukranian immigrant.

1945: Detained for six months in a British detention camp in Rafah, Egypt, for resistance to British rule of Palestine.

1947: Appointed deputy commander of the Palmah, the strike force of the Jewish underground.

1948: Commanded brigades in Israel's war of independence.

1953: Graduated from the Staff College in Britain after deciding to become a career military man.

1964: Appointed Israel's Seventh Army chief of staff.

1967: Planned and led Israel to victory in the 1967 Six-Day War against the combined Arab forces.

1968: Named Israel's ambassador to the United States.

1974: Elected Israel's fifth prime minister.

1976: Secretly met with Jordan's King Hussein and other Arab leaders.

1977: Rabin-led government fell over a scandal involving an illegal foreign bank account held by his wife, Leah. Likud's Menachem Begin elected prime minister.

1984: Named defense minister in Labor-Likud coalition government headed by Shimon Peres.

1987: Adopts "iron fist" policy in dealing with the intifada, a sustained Palestinian uprising.

1988: Likud's Yitzhak Shamir elected prime minister.

1992: Rabin elected prime minister of Labor coalition.

1993: Rabin authorizes secret talks with PLO. Shakes hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat at signing of PLO-Israel peace accord in Washington.

1994: Wins Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. Signs peace accord with Jordan.

1995: In September, shakes hands with Arafat again for signing of accord that includes handing over of large parts of the West Bank to Palestinians.