By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem ----November 4….On a warm, November evening in 1995 I was sitting at a cafe in Tel Aviv, Israel enjoying drinks with a friend. A nearby TV in a kiosk across the street blurted out the news. Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had just been shot. Rabin had finished addressing a peace rally about a mile away at Tel Aviv's City Hall, when a Jewish assassin crept up behind the war hero and fired shots at point blank range.

It was supposed to be a different kind of rally. Instead of a protest, it was a demonstration in support, a demonstration of gratitude to Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for what they had done for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We wanted to declare our appreciation for these two elderly statesmen who had managed, for the most part, to break free of the old patterns of thinking and action that had fixed their attitudes toward the Palestinians for decades.

It was Nov. 4, 1995. This square in Israel was packed with people. Tens of thousands of peace activists and supporters had arrived. We were all well aware of the huge obstacles Rabin faced in moving toward peace. We had seen the angry demonstrations by the right wing in this very square and others, and the venomous vigils each Friday in front of his official residence in Jerusalem. We had heard the incitement of the right's leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, and of the right-wing rabbis who considered Rabin a traitor and declared that he should be judged. There were pictures comparing Rabin to a Nazi directly under a podium in Jerusalem where Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking. No one thought for a minute that this incitement would transcend into murder.

Silence now blanketed Israel. People were in tears - shocked with frozen stares. As I sat on a bus heading home, the bus's radio announced that Rabin was dead. The elderly women sitting in front of me and the young female soldier standing alongside began to sob.

The last time I encountered a dreadful situation as this was when President John Kennedy was assassinated. I fell asleep listening to Israel TV.

I was awoken at about 2 a.m. by Arnon Katz. Arnon was the general manager of NetKing - the first Internet advertising, marketing and SEO portal established in Israel. NetKing was a division of one Israel's top five advertising agencies - Tamir, Cohen (Jacobson) Advertising.

"We have to do something", Arnon said. I suggested a condolence page. As deputy manager of NetKing, I knew that we had all of the tools in place. We had a programmer, a CGI specialist, a graphic artist and I would write the copy.

I knew that at a time like this, people have a need to "do something" - to find a means to express their collective sorrow from Israel and around the world. And there was no better vehicle than this new technology called the Net.

Within four hours we had the Israel Yitzhak Rabin Memorial and Condolence page up. I notified CNN and Yahoo. Back in 1995, if any sites were truly busy - these were the first. They immediately took our Rabin page and placed it in the center of the news.

The Associated Press and Reuters were also quick to pick up the story and passed it onto thousands of newspapers, TV and radio stations worldwide. By the end of the day on November 5, we had an Internet CGI program illustrating flickering candles, another CGI with thousands of Rabin condolence messages and another program illustrating a photographic history of the late Prime Minister.

The only thing missing was a picture of Yitzhak Rabin to place on the home page. Since Google and Yahoo photo data banks did not exist back then, I rushed into a nearby book store and bought a paperback with Rabin's photo on the cover. We scanned the image and uploaded it at 56 kps, we were working slowly by telephone modem. In retrospect, I really never cared for that Rabin photo. It looked slouchy, unprofessional. But that's what we had, that's what we used and it will remain unchanged.

On the morning of November 6th, a CNN crew came to our studio in Tel Aviv and interviewed Katz. The Internet was coming alive with something warm, humane and very touching.

Never before had people combined the computer and telephone lines to demonstrate their feelings.

In these early days of the the Internet the Web was a passive toy. You could read the news on CNN, send e-mail - if someone had the Net and maybe find something of academic interest on Yahoo. E-mail was reserved only for us Internet geeks and you would not find a Web address on any package of cereal, a can of Coke or Calvin Klein jeans for years to come.

These were the pioneering days. Not knowing if the Net was a fad, to become obsolete within a few weeks like the "pet rock" or the Spice Girls! The Net was a novelty. And this Israel site very well suited the Net, a culture which had maintained a non-commercial existence. The owners of NetKing wanted to cash in on the commercial side. They were and are among the most professional advertising executives in the world, but knew nothing of Internet culture. And what made it even more difficult was that this was a Condolence site.

As I look back, I can understand that they had invested a lot of capital and time to set up this primitive and historic Israel Internet unit and wanted to show that it was at least paying for itself. Roni Cohen and David Tamir deserve credit beyond articulation for their Internet marketing advertising foresight. They had established one of the first commercial Websites in world, years before the Israel Defense Forces even thought of the idea.

But this was not the time or place for neon lights - not yet. As news of the Yitzhak Rabin interactive memorial condolence site spread quickly from New York and London to Japan and China, we had problems maintaining the computer server. We were strangers in a strange land. We never anticipated so many hits per minute, per hour.

We worked 18 hour days to improve and maintain the Rabin site. Proofing the thousands of condolence messages from Israel and abroad took hours. From over a half million messages, only two had to be removed for hate content.

A mirror site was set up in the States - just in case. The team at NetKing, was only few weeks away from officially launching the commercial Internet site in Israel which offered everything under the sun. None of us ever imagined that Israel's first commercial portal would rise out from obscurity on the heels of the Rabin tragedy.

Messages of sympathy poured in from every continent for the Rabin family and the people of Israel.

The Israel Foreign Ministry, which had just launched their own site, quickly made the NetKing Condolence page - the official Condolence site for the State of Israel. This was history. For the first time on the Net, hundreds of thousands of computer monitors had shifted away from CNN and Yahoo to participate actively for a public cause.

Instead of reading, the Internet community was doing, participating by writing words and lighting candles. The computer geeks and academics were quickly losing their sacred territory to the world public. "Coming together" on the Net was now possible for everyone. The retired gent in Manchester, England and the 5th graders in Wisconsin, USA. The Internet had now closed one chapter and jumped into a new one. From defense to academia to a new, wired global village for which we were to become obsessed with.

A few years ago when John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law died in the tragic plane crash I wanted to express my grief to the Kennedy family. I had worked for Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980, met and was very impressed with the Kennedy family. Beyond that - the Kennedy Family serves as the Royal Family for America - it was a loss for which all Americans felt deeply.

Realizing that their was no site created for condolences, I quickly built an Internet site with the aid of volunteers from Israel, Europe and the States. I was never in the "condolence Internet business" and didn't want to change professions. But I had no choice. What took a few minutes to get placed on CNN Interactive in 1995, took a few days in 1999. Our Kennedy Condolence site became a major feature on CNN, AP and Yahoo, but with a difference. This time the other sites which shared the "related link" category were now selling T-shirts, books, cars and beginning to embrace to the modern methods of SEO or search engine optimization!

After ten years, the Yitzhak Rabin Condolence site is still functioning. Nothing has been changed from the original graphics and fonts of 1995. You will not see a Flash presentation nor Web cams in use. What you will see is the Internet as it was ten years ago with the only difference being the thousands of people who have entered the site since then.

You can view and enter a message of condolence on the Yitzhak Rabin Condolence Page at: www.otn.com/netking.

The following is a biography of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem on March 1, 1922. His father Nehemieh had immigrated to Israel from the United States and in World War 1 served as a volunteer in the Jewish Legion. His mother, Rosa, was one of the first members of the Haganah.

Yitzhak Rabin attended primary school in Tel-Aviv, and the Kedoorie agricultural college in the Lower Galilee, from which he graduated with distinction. After completing his schooling, he volunteered for the Palmach, where he began his military career. He served in the Palmach and the Israel Defense Forces for 27 years.

In 1949 he was a member of the Israel delegation for the first negotiations with Egypt. On January 1st 1968, he retired from service in the IDF, where he had served as Chief of Staff. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed Israeli Ambassador to Washington, and on March 5th 1968 presented his Letter of Credential to the President of the United States.

During his years of service, as Israel Ambassador to Washington, he consolidated and cultivated the ties between the two states. In Spring 1973, he returned to Israel's capital, Jerusalem, and became active in the Israel Labor party. In the December 1973 elections he was elected to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), and when Golda Meir formed her Government in April 1974, he was appointed Minister of Labor. On June 2nd 1974, the Knesset expressed confidence in a new government headed by Yitzhak Rabin.

Yitzhak Rabin served as Prime Minister of Israel following the Yom Kippur War. During this period, special emphasis was placed on improving the economy, solving economic and social problems, and strengthening the IDF. With American mediation, Rabin conducted negotiations on the interim agreement with Egypt, signed in 1975. As a result of this agreement, the first memorandum of understanding was signed between the governments of Israel and the United States.

In June 1976, the government headed by Rabin, ordered the Entebbe operation. Following the May 1977 elections, Rabin served as a labor member of the Knesset in opposition, and was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. He filled these positions until the formation of a national unity government in September 1984. Rabin served as Minister of Defence in the national unity government from September 1984 until March 1990. In January 1985, he presented to the government the proposal for the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon and the establishment of a security zone guaranteeing peace to the settlements along Israel's Northern border.

In May 1989, the government of Israel adopted his plan for an arrangement with the Palestinians, in stages, which has served as the basis for the recent peace making efforts. From March 15th 1990 he was a member of Knesset in opposition. Yitzhak Rabin was elected chairman of the Israel Labor party in it's first nation wide primaries conducted in February 1992. Following the June 1992 elections, Yitzhak Rabin was elected to head the current Israeli government.

His premiership was marked by the following landmarks in the peace process: On September 13, 1993, at the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn, Prime Minister Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. On October 26, 1994, on the Israel-Jordan border, he signed the Treaty of Peace between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. On September 28, 1995, he was a signatory to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Rabin was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in December 1994, along with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

A biography of Yitzhak Rabin, "Service Notebook", was published in 1979, and was translated into English and French. His book on Lebanon, written after the Operation Peace for Galilee, was published in 1983.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4th 1995, while attending a peace rally in Tel-Aviv. Yitzhak Rabin leaves his wife Leah, his daughter Dalia, his son Yuval and three grandchildren. The funeral took place on Monday, November 6th, 1995 at 2:00 p.m. in Jerusalem. Among the world leaders who attended the funeral were President Clinton, King Hussein of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Israeli Cabinet decided that flags at state institutions and IDF bases will be lowered to half-mast. On Monday November 6th 1995, at 14:00 hours, when the late Prime Minister was laid to rest, air raid sirens sounded for two minutes throughout the entire country. The mood in Israel was somber with black ribbons hanging from office buildings and streaming from car antennas.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY

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