Read Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel for Free Online

sought to ensure that Arafat would not greet Rabin in the manner of Arab tradition: a kiss on each cheek and sometimes one on the forehead as well. Rabin had resolved to make peace with Israel’s enemies, but he was no hugger. He certainly did not want to feel Arafat’s whiskers pressing against his face. “All right. All right. But no kissing,” he had told Clinton by phone over the weekend when the president pressed for a handshake onstage. Seeing to the requests required some creative maneuvering by the White House staff. Clinton, who had been in office for nine months by this point, felt determined to make Rabin comfortable.
    The relationship between the two men began awkwardly a year earlier. Rabin had just started his term as prime minister and wasvisiting the United States for meetings with President George H. W. Bush. Clinton asked to sit down with him as well. The former Arkansas governor was in the final stage of a tough election battle against Bush and hoped a photo with the Israeli leader would help his campaign. Rabin tried to put him off. He hated the idea of being a factor in the US election. But Clinton kept pressing.
    When they did get together on August 12 at the Madison Hotel, along with the vice-presidential candidate, Al Gore, and staff members on all sides, the opening niceties gave way to a series of uncomfortable silences. Rabin felt wary of Democrats, a vestige of his run-ins with Jimmy Carter during his first term as prime minister. And though Clinton on good days could fill a room with his charm, the two men were just extraordinarily dissimilar—Rabin a regimented old soldier, and Clinton a freewheeling baby boomer and former Rhodes scholar.
    Sheves, who had known Gore and his aides from a stint years earlier on a leadership program in Washington, felt the meeting drifting toward disaster. He whispered to Gore that Clinton should raise the issue of American military aid. Israel had been the biggest recipient of US defense funding since the 1970s. Perhaps Clinton could commit himself as president to sustaining the nearly $2 billion aid package, Sheves offered. Gore scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper and passed it to Clinton, who, on reading it, launched into a speech about America’s commitment to Israel’s security. It seemed to work—Sheves noticed Rabin perking up.
    At their next meeting in March, Clinton was already president and hoping, like many of his predecessors, to help bring peace to the Middle East. The Oslo talks had been under way by then but Rabin kept the details to himself. Still, Clinton sensed a determination on Rabin’s part to forge a deal with either Syria or the Palestinians—though not both at the same time. He also felt drawn to Rabin’s directness and honesty, the gruff exterior notwithstanding. Clinton would say later about the meeting that Rabin “was sort of sizing me up, and I already knew he was bigger than life.”
    To head off any awkwardness between Arafat and Rabin, Indyk solicited the help of Bandar bin Sultan, a Saudi prince who had been serving as ambassador to the United States for a decade. An influentialfigure in Washington, Bandar had cultivated close ties with American elites, including members of the Bush family. He also had connections to most Arab leaders and knew Arafat personally. Indyk asked Bandar to brief Arafat about both the “no kissing rule,” as people in the White House were now calling it, and the matter of his attire. While Arafat was still en route to Washington, Bandar ordered several suits delivered to his hotel room.
    With three hours left before the ceremony, the two issues—tiny representations of the sensitivities Israelis and Palestinians would have to overcome—were now occupying the president and his staff. At a meeting in the Oval Office, Clinton’s national security adviser, Anthony Lake, said he knew a way to thwart the traditional Arab embrace. It involved extending the right arm for a handshake while