With the recent war between Israel and Hamas, I can’t help thinking about when my wife and I, along with nine other American journalists, met and had lunch with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 50 years ago at his headquarters in Jerusalem. The Israeli government had invited us to write about their perspective on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as well as surrounding Arab countries.

My wife, Jeanette, a now-retired nurse, was invited to interview Israeli medical researchers whose findings about childhood ailments had been reported in a prominent medical journal, and she was permitted to sit in on our meeting with Rabin. We treasure the photo of her and Rabin accompanying this article. Jeanette authored a book, "Child Abuse and the School," in 1982.

Rabin was born in Jerusalem in 1922 to Jewish immigrants from Belarus. He had a 27-year military career and ultimately attained the rank of Rav Aluf, the most senior rank in the Israeli Defense Forces (often translated as lieutenant general). He rose through its ranks to become chief of operations during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He joined the then-newly formed Israeli Defense Forces in 1948, was appointed chief of the general staff in 1964 and oversaw Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Rabin, who said he had a fondness for journalists because his wife, Leah Schlossberg, was a newspaper reporter, served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973 during a period of deepening U.S.-Israel ties. He was appointed the fifth prime minister of Israel in 1974 after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement, in which both Israel and Egypt agreed to resolve all territorial disputes by peaceful means. Rabin was Israel's minister of defense for much of the 1980s.

"Although I was a military man for so many years and had so many friends die in battle," Rabin told us in 1975, "I am 100% sure that the only way to a lasting peace for us and our neighbors is through humanity and compromise, not war. We have had far too much hatred and destruction, and it is madness. No parent, not Jewish or Arab, wants to see their sons and grandsons die in battle. We are such a small country, about the size of your state of Delaware.

"You can drive from north to south of our entire country in about six hours. It is crazy for us and our neighbors to have had so much violence and death throughout this century. I can assure you all that I will go to the end of the earth and leave no stone unturned to bring about peace for both us and our neighboring countries. I will talk to anyone, even those who say they hate us. Talking is much better than shooting. Some of my own former comrades in the military think I have become too soft. Some are calling me a 'peacenik' and not in a complimentary way, but that's alright. I don't care what they call me as long as I can help bring peace to this troubled part of the world. We are all human, and we all deserve respect, Arabs as well as Jews."

Tragically, this "warrior-turned-peacenik" paid for his conciliatory views with his life. In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with longtime political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 that has held to this day.

On Nov. 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a far-right Israeli extremist and law student who opposed the Oslo Accords. Amir was convicted of Rabin's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. According to Israeli newspapers, Amir has never expressed regret over the assassination. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel and the only prime minister to be assassinated. Rabin has since become a symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

I can truly say that meeting Yitzhak Rabin was an unforgettable honor. Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he knew that his "peacenik" views were putting his life in extreme jeopardy. Of course it is impossible to know the answer, but I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if Yitzhak Rabin had been the Israeli prime minister in recent years instead of Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was born Benzion Mileikowsky in Warsaw, Poland, but lived in Cheltenham between 1956 and 1958 and between 1963 and 1968 and attended Cheltenham High School. In 1967 he moved to Israel to join the Israeli Defense Forces.

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com