Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin became chief of staff for the Israeli military in 1964, and directed the armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967. He succeeded Golda Meir as Prime Minister in 1974, but resigned in 1977. He became the leader of the Labour Party, served as Defense Minister in the late 1980s and was elected Prime Minister in 1992. A proponent of Middle East peace, Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. In 1995 he was shot to death by an Israeli law student who claimed Rabin intended to "give our country to the Arabs."