Excerpts from Remarks by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the Tel Aviv Peace Rally, 4 November 1995

I was a soldier for 27 years. I fought as long as there was no prospect of peace. I believe that there is now a chance for peace, a great chance, which must be seized....

I have always believed most of the nation wants peace and is prepared to take risks for peace. And you here, who have come to take a stand for peace, as well as many others who are not here, are proof that the nation truly wants peace and rejects violence. Violence is undermining the foundations of Israeli democracy. It must be rejected and condemned and it must be contained. It is not the way of the State of Israel. Democracy is our way... "Peace is not just a prayer. It is at first a prayer, but it is also the realistic aspiration of the Jewish people. But peace has its enemies, who are trying to harm us, to torpedo the peace.

We have found a partner in peace among the Palestinians as well - the PLO, which was an enemy and has now forsaken terrorism... There is no painless way forward for Israel. But the way of peace is preferable to war...

This rally must send a message to the Israeli public, to the Jews of the world, to the multitudes in the Arab lands and in the world at large, that the nation of Israel wants peace, supports peace - and for this, I thank you.

SOURCES: https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/excerpts-from-a-speech-by-prime-minister-rabin-at-a-peace-rally-4-nov-1995; Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, expanded ed., trans. Dov Goldstein, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, Appendix J.