document · Speech
Yitzhak Rabin — Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1994)
Hebrew 
Israel 1994-12-10
Politician: Yitzhak Rabin
Original source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1994/rabin/lecture/
Content
At the tender age of sixteen, I was handed a rifle so that I could defend myself – and also, unfortunately, so that I could kill in an hour of danger. That was not my dream. […] However, I was compelled to resort to the gun.
The leaders of nations must provide their peoples with the conditions – the 'infrastructure', if you will – which enables them to enjoy life […] and most important of all: life itself. […] There is only one radical means of sanctifying human lives. Not armored plating, or tanks, or planes, or concrete fortifications. The one radical solution is peace.
History as a whole […] has known harrowing times when national leaders turned their citizens into cannon fodder in the name of wicked doctrines: vicious Fascism and fiendish Nazism. […] Almost all the regimes which did not place Man and the sanctity of Life at the heart of their world view, all those regimes have collapsed and are no more.
In the State of Israel […] we have always viewed the Sanctity of Life as a supreme value. We have gone to war only when a fearful sword was poised to cut us down. […] soldiers who […] gave their lives to avoid causing harm to innocent people on the enemy's side.
We are in the midst of building the peace. […] And so we are determined to do the job well – despite the toll of murderous terrorism, despite fanatic and scheming enemies. We will pursue the course of peace with determination and fortitude. […] Peace will triumph over all our enemies, because the alternative is grim for us all.
I wish to thank our partners – the Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, and the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Mr. Yasser Arafat, with whom we share this Nobel Prize – who have chosen the path of peace. […] I am here as the emissary of Jerusalem […] Jerusalem which has always been, and is today, the eternal capital of the State of Israel and the heart of the Jewish people. How to cite this document
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In-text
(Rabin, 1994) Rabin, Y.. (1994). Yitzhak Rabin — Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1994) [Original language: HE]. nobelprize.org. Retrieved June 21, 2026, from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1994/rabin/lecture/
Rabin, Yitzhak. 1994. "Yitzhak Rabin — Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1994)." [Original language: HE] nobelprize.org. Accessed June 21, 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1994/rabin/lecture/.
@misc{doc-document-f9e482a4-853e-4f35-b651-555232ee24ea,
author = {Rabin, Yitzhak},
title = {Yitzhak Rabin — Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1994)},
year = {1994},
date = {1994-12-10},
howpublished = {Online; hosted at nobelprize.org},
url = {https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1994/rabin/lecture/},
urldate = {2026-06-21},
language = {he},
note = {Retrieved via Tayyar at https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/f9e482a4-853e-4f35-b651-555232ee24ea},
} Retrieved via Tayyar: https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/f9e482a4-853e-4f35-b651-555232ee24ea on June 21, 2026. Tayyar is a research host for primary sources, not the author of this document.