Yitzhak Rabin was laid to rest Monday at a remarkable gathering of world leaders who saluted the slain prime minister's unwavering courage in war and peace. His tearful granddaughter, in a moving eulogy, spoke of the pain of losing her "private hero."
Rabin, who led Israel to triumphs on the battlefield, then stretched out a hand of peace to his Arab neighbors, was buried with full military honors in a pine glade atop a hill overlooking the volatile city where he was born 73 years ago.His funeral brought to Israel not only leaders of the West with close ties to the Jewish state but also heads of state from the Arab world, testimony that Rabin's three years of peacemaking have changed the Middle East.
Shimon Peres picked up the burden of governing the shocked and saddened nation after Rabin was shot Saturday by a right-wing Israeli who opposed Rabin's concessions to Palestinians on the West Bank.
Peres looked over the crowd of dignitaries and mourners from around the world and said: "This is the crowning glory of your efforts, all of us here together.
"The man who murdered you will not be able to murder the idea that you carried," Peres said. "You left us a road that we will follow.
"I see our Arab neighbors, and I want to tell them that peace is attainable both here and with you," he said.
It was a remarkable sight to see the Jordanian king, in a white-and-red checkered Arab headdress, and President Hosni Mu-ba-rak of Egypt speaking in Jerusalem in praise of an Israeli leader.
"You lived as a soldier, you died as a soldier for peace," Jordan's King Hussein told the 4,000 mourners at the Mount Herzl cemetery, under a bright Jerusalem sun. "I believe it is time for all of us to come out openly and speak about peace."
The most poignant words came fromRabin's 17-year-old granddaughter, Noa Ben Artzi, who said she wanted to speak of the man, not the peacemaker.
"You are our hero, lone wolf," the red-haired, freckled young woman said, weeping as she spoke of the laconic, intensely private man.
"You were so wonderful," she said. "Ones greater than I have eulogized you, but none knew the softness of your caress as I. For that half-smile of yours that always said everything, the smile that is no longer there. There is no feeling of revenge in me for the pain does not allow the space."
Leaving the podium in tears, she was hugged by her brother, Yona-tan, dressed in an olive-drab paratrooper's uniform and red beret.
President Clinton came at the head of an official American delegation of more than two dozen people, whose size was meant to signal Washington's support for Israel and the peace process Rabin was not allowed to complete.
"Now it falls to all of us who love peace and all of us who loved him to carry on the struggle to which he gave life and for which he gave his life."
Clinton's tribute took a personal tone for the man he called a "chaver," Hebrew for friend. He affectionately recalled Rabin's lack of pretense and formality. Rabin, who always preferred the company of gruff soldiers to that of diplomats, had come to a black-tie dinner in Washington in September without the black tie.
"So he borrowed one, and I was privileged to straighten it for him," said Clinton, wearing a black skullcap. "To him, ceremonies and words were less important than deeds."
Rabin's widow, Leah, who had wept through most of the speeches, smiled at hearing Clinton's recollection.
More than 40 world leaders came to Israel in an outpouring of sympathy that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, when the country had been a pariah in much of the world. Most striking was the presence of the Arab leaders, including Hussein of Jordan and Mubarak of Egypt, and ministers of Oman and Qatar, who attended even though their countries have no ties with Israel.
These Arab leaders came to Jerusalem for the first time since it has been under Israeli rule, despite the possible political price: Arab leaders do not recognize Israel's claims to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, and visits to the city were avoided for fear of reinforcing Israel's claim.
Mubarak, the Egyptian leader, carried on Egypt's peace with Israel after his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was killed in 1981 by Islamic militants who opposed the Jewish state's first treaty with an Arab nation.
"The best memorial for Yitzhak Rabin is to continue what he started, which is the peace process," he told the mourners. "Only through our unwavering commitment to this objective can we truly honor the memory of this fallen hero of peace."
The last man to speak was Rabin's aide, Eitan Haber, who had announced to the world that the prime minister had died Saturday night.
He took out the bloodstained sheet of paper with the words of the "Song for Peace" that Rabin had sung at the peace rally and put in his pocket just minutes before he was killed.
The coffin was carried about 200 yards to the gravesite in a pine glade. A blue-and-white flag with the Star of David was removed from the casket, which was then lowered into the grave. Members of the burial society scooped earth into containers and covered the casket.
A rabbi intoned the prayer, "God, Full of Mercy."
The mourners sat in rows of white chairs on Mount Herzl, where Rabin was buried among the nation's past leaders and military heroes. Many of the foreign visitors wore black skullcaps, others wore blue baseball caps.
Other dignitaries who attended were Prime Ministers Viktor Cher-no-myr-din of Russia and John Major of Britain, Prince Charles and Presidents Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany.
The funeral began with a two-minute siren that wailed throughout the country in tribute to the man who led Israel in war as chief of staff, then led it to peace with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan.
Life in Israel came to a standstill at the sound of the siren. Drivers stopped their cars, got out and stood in silence.
Rabin's casket had been brought from the bier where it had lain in state for 24 hours outside the parliament building. Eight army generals and police chiefs loaded the casket on an army truck covered with black wood. The vehicle drove slowly through the downtown streets, which were closed to normal traffic, to the Mount Herzl cemetery, named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism and visionary of the modern Israeli state.
Israelis mobbed the cortege route to say farewell, including hospital patients who ran toward the street in their robes.
One million people in this nation of 5 million had filed past the late prime minister's coffin, which lay in state outside the Knesset - children on parents' shoulders, soldiers, Israeli Arabs in flowing headdresses. Many sobbed. Dozens fainted.