MISSOURI COMMENTARY: LAND-FOR-PEACE MADE IRREVOCABLE

In the stunned aftermath of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the impact of the event was compared to the killing of John F. Kennedy. The more appropriate historical analogy, however, is that of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had led his nation through the trauma of its most divisive, existential conflict. 600,000 Americans, Yankee and Confederate, had perished in a horrific Civil War. Lincoln, re-elected in 1864, was poised to move on the equally difficult path of reconstruction and revitalization.

Historians still debate how different things might have been if Lincoln, a man of great imagination, had been able to lead the nation during such trying times instead of President Andrew Johnson. History is most tantalizing in the might-have-beens that are created by turning points and defining moments such as the assassination of Lincoln by his fellow countrymen.

So too in Israel. Like Lincoln, Rabin is the first leader of his country to fall at the hand of an assassin. Like the American president, the Israeli prime minister was stalked for months by an ideologically motivated killer who finally silenced a leader whose vision of a peaceful future the assassin could not accept. Rabin was as indispensable to the process of postwar reconciliation as was Lincoln in his time.

The beginning steps toward a comprehensive peace has been made with respect to Egypt by his predecessor Menachen Begin. But the great impetus to end hostilities between Israel and its Arab neighbors came during the Rabin years. The negotiations were, hopefully, to be concluded before the Israeli election a year form now. However that election might go, the structure of a land-for-peace settlement would be sufficiently in place so as to be irrevocable.

The hoped-for schedule has been derailed. The engineer is gone. The train is stalled on the track with an empty cab. The analogy calls to mind Whitman's image of a ship with Lincoln at the helm that survived a perilous voyage at sea only to have the captain perish before the vessel could safely reach port. In both cases, the voyage to a peaceful future has been interrupted.

As has been stated, Rabin was a peacemaker, not a peacenik. He came to his peacemaking responsibilities as a cautious convert. Rabin had to be shown that the excruciating pain of reaching peace was a price necessary to be paid for a more stable future for his country. He was nudged to that position by his long-standing political rival, Shimon Peres.

Peres is a politician's politician. He has operated in and around Israeli government for over 50 years. Peres came to the peace process sooner than most in Israel. In tactical approach, he was clearly a man before his time, although in political terms he may now be, in the minds of some, a man beyond his time.

In terms of personalities, the Lincoln analogy shifts a bit to the Kennedy parallel. If Rabin is Israel's Lincoln, then Peres might be considered as Israel's Lyndon Johnson, who must carry out the mandate of a predecessor (and former opponent) whose martyrdom now transcends politics.

Peres is, as Johnson was, a complete creature of politics. It is part of their inner beings. It is in their minds and souls. To remove Johnson from politics was to insure his demise. So too with Peres.

Johnson wanted to accomplish what his predecessor could not achieve. Johnson, the wise deal-maker, would complete Kennedy's visionary agenda. Can Peres accomplish Rabin's goals? Can Israel's deal-maker complete Rabin's tasks? Can he bring the special talents he possesses to fulfill what Rabin had begun?

The commanding question of the Israeli-Palestinian relations is: within a year, can the Peres government move fast enough in a land-for-peace process so as to cause agreements entered into to be irrevocable?

The commanding question of Israeli-Syrian relations is: Will President Hafez Assad of Syria recognize that now is perhaps the last chance within his lifetime for peace to be irrevocably established between his nation and Israel?

Inflammatory rhetoric has been injected into Israeli political discourse. It is no longer the customary vigorous juxtaposition of intensely differing views. It is now a caustic atmosphere punctuated with words like "treason" and "traitor."

It is an atmosphere that incubates violence. Just as the vitriol of the fringe in America can result in a horror like Oklahoma City, a similar drumbeat of paranoia can result in the assassination of a prime minister. There is no certainty to the future in an atmosphere of shrieking bombast -- except, that is, for one thing. If it continues, there will be more violence ahead.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.