Eitan Haber

Haber was born in Tel Aviv on March 12, 1940, to Yehuda and Tova Haber. He studied at the religious Bilu school and began writing for children’s publications while still young: he wrote poems for HaTzofeh LaYeladim at age nine, worked as a youth reporter for Herut LaNoar, and joined the staff of the newspaper Herut at 14.[1] He was later listed among younger journalists writing for Herut in the 1960s; several of those journalists became prominent in media and public life.[4]

Haber enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1958 and was assigned to its weekly magazine, BaMahane, as a military correspondent. During his service he was sent to Northern Command amid security incidents on the Syrian border, where he met Yitzhak Rabin, then the command’s acting commander. Haber later recalled that this encounter began a friendship that would shape his professional life.[1][2] A photograph dated September 8, 1967, shows him speaking with Itzhak Livni.[5]

After leaving military service in 1960, Haber joined Yedioth Ahronoth and reported on military and security affairs. He covered reprisal operations and major conflicts, including the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, and the 1982 Lebanon War, known in Israel as the Peace for Galilee War.[1] He often joined soldiers on the battlefield and covered events as they unfolded.[2] His tenure as the paper’s military correspondent is described as 25 years in one obituary and 26 years in another; the latter gives the dates as 1960–1985.[1][6]

During the Yom Kippur War, Haber later recalled reaching a site called Hatzer near the Suez Canal after Egyptian shelling had subsided. He saw the bodies of Israeli soldiers on a hill and remembered troops lifting blankets to identify them by their shoes. He called it “the Hill of Silence” and said the scene profoundly influenced his writing and work.[3]

Haber also presented and edited programs on Army Radio, known as Galei Tzahal, and worked in Israeli television and radio. He remained a regular columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth and published 21 books on military and security subjects.[2][1] In the 1970s, he co-wrote HaMachdal with Yeshayahu Ben Porat, Yehonatan Geffen, and other journalists. The book examined failures of leadership before the Yom Kippur War.[7]

His books also addressed Israeli political history and diplomacy. Year of the Dove, coauthored with Zeev Schiff and Ehud Yaari, was published by Bantam Books in 1979 and ran to 312 pages. It concerns the 1977–1979 Egyptian-Israeli negotiations and was based on notes by Israelis who attended them.[8] Bibliographic listings also include Haber’s Menachem Begin: The Legend and the Man, translated by Louis Williams, and “Today War Will Break Out”: The Reminiscences of Brig. Gen. Israel Lior, Aide-de-Camp to Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir.[9] References differ on whether Menachem Begin: The Legend and the Man appeared in 1978 or 1979, and one spells the author’s name “Eithan Haber”; the supplied sources do not resolve those discrepancies.[10][11]

Haber’s journalism career developed into a long working relationship with Rabin. In 1985, while Rabin was defense minister in a national-unity government, Haber left journalism to become his communications adviser. He accompanied Rabin during the First Intifada and left government with him in 1990, after a political crisis described in the sources as the “stinking maneuver”; Haber then returned to Yedioth Ahronoth.[2][7]

After Labor’s election victory in 1992, Haber rejoined Rabin as an adviser and head of the prime minister’s office. He managed the office until Rabin’s assassination in 1995, handling public and communications work, some diplomatic matters, and much of Rabin’s speechwriting.[1][3] A 1995 photograph archive describes Haber as a “journalist and PM Rabin’s press adviser,” without giving more specific dates or duties.[12]

Former Shin Bet chief Yaakov Peri described Haber’s remit as extending beyond communications and office administration. Peri said Haber understood security systems and advised Rabin on security and political questions, while also earning Rabin’s trust in finding language suited to a particular speech and occasion.[13] Jennifer Roskies’s account of a 1993 visit to Montreal describes Haber working through the night with her on Rabin’s speech for a North American Jewish community gathering, revising drafts with Israeli officials and bringing them to Rabin for review.[14]

Haber’s work involved both carefully prepared public language and access to internal deliberations. In a tribute to Rabin, Senator Frank Lautenberg called him one of Rabin’s “senior, most dedicated staff members” and said he wrote some of Rabin’s speeches.[15] Haber reportedly explained that “the speech writing was the least significant part of a great speech,” because a memorable talk also required “a great speech deliverer.”[15] At a commemoration of Rabin’s death, Haber also recalled Professor Ehud Sprinzak’s central role in Rabin’s decision-making process.[16]

Haber was part of a small team that worked secretly on the Israel–Jordan peace agreement. As head of Rabin’s office, he also oversaw the prime minister’s political and security-related trips abroad, including visits to Indonesia, Morocco, Oman, China, Japan, and South Korea.[2][1] In a later recollection of the agreement, Haber said Rabin returned from a private meeting with King Hussein and told the Israeli delegation, “We solved the problems you left us.” Haber replied, “So we have a peace agreement,” and Rabin nodded.[17]

Haber also described the practical preparations for the Israel–Jordan treaty ceremony near Eilat. He recalled that organizers had only eight or nine days to prepare the desert site, where thousands of mines had been covered with earth and needed to be located and removed. He also recounted asking the Jordanian king’s chief of staff to arrange a philharmonic orchestra, only to learn shortly before the ceremony that Jordan had no philharmonic orchestra.[17]

His speechwriting extended to the 1993 Oslo signing ceremony in Washington. Haber said he had written Rabin’s speech and found him rehearsing it aloud shortly before the event. When Haber asked how it was going, Rabin paused and replied, “Dalia shed a tear,” which Haber remembered as the highest form of thanks he could have received.[17]

On November 4, 1995, after Rabin was shot at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Haber went to Ichilov Hospital. In his recollection, he called U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk and asked him to notify President Bill Clinton, then called Ali Shukri, head of King Hussein’s private office. Haber later said that when he looked into the operating room and saw doctors treating Rabin, he left without approaching him again: “I want to remember him as he was in his life.”[17]

After hospital director Gabi Barbash told him Rabin had died, Haber wrote the government’s announcement on the back of Rabin’s schedule for the coming week. He read it to journalists waiting outside the hospital, publicly announcing the death of the prime minister and defense minister.[17][3] The words are especially remembered for their opening, “The Government of Israel announces with astonishment.” Ynetnews renders the following phrase as “great sorrow and deep sadness.”[2]

Accounts differ over who suggested adding the word “astonishment” to the announcement. Haber’s 2019 recollection credits Yossi Sarid with suggesting the addition, while an interview published in 1997 attributes the suggestion to Shimon Peres.[17][18]

At Rabin’s funeral, Haber read from the page bearing the words of the “Song of Peace,” which Rabin had sung at the rally and carried in his breast pocket. The paper was stained with Rabin’s blood; Haber described it in his eulogy as a symbol, saying, “Peace was covered in blood.”[17] A tribute by Lautenberg likewise recalled Haber displaying the blood-spattered page that had been kept in Rabin’s breast pocket and reading from it at the funeral.[15]

Haber left the Prime Minister’s Office when Shimon Peres succeeded Rabin and returned to journalism. He later wrote about Rabin’s legacy, was involved in establishing the Yitzhak Rabin museum, and served in the management of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israeli Studies.[13][6]

In September 2019, Haber disclosed that he had become ill and retired from Yedioth Ahronoth. He named cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Sjögren’s syndrome, and diabetes among his illnesses; a report quoting him also described severe cancer affecting the colon and pancreas.[3][2] In reflecting on his condition, he said, “I could die tomorrow. Not bad though. I've done my thing after 60 years of non-stop work.”[2]

Haber died on October 7, 2020, at age 80, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by a daughter, a son, and four grandchildren.[3] Tributes emphasized both his journalism and his close association with Rabin. President Reuven Rivlin called him a “knight of the written and precise word” and said that he had “turned history into words” through descriptions that helped shape national memory. Benjamin Netanyahu called him “one of the pillars of Israeli journalism” and said Israel’s security had been foremost in his mind and writing.[3]

Haber’s legacy is closely tied to the record he made as a reporter and the language he supplied to public events. His announcement of Rabin’s death and his reading of the blood-stained song sheet at the funeral became defining episodes in accounts of his life, while his books and reporting documented military, political, and diplomatic affairs.[3][1]

Despite his close association with Rabin and his role in preparing speeches connected with the Oslo process, Haber was reported to have personally objected to the Oslo Accords, believing that the process was moving too quickly. He nevertheless remained one of Rabin’s closest associates and continued writing his speeches.[2][1]

A participant’s retrospective account of preparations for Rabin’s 1993 Montreal speech describes Haber responding to disagreement over an internal memo about North American Jewish opposition to Israel’s recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The account’s author, Jennifer Roskies, says she questioned the memo’s explanation; Haber then tore it up and told her, “If even one other person in that hall has the same thought, it’s not worth telling them.”[14] This recollection is an individual account of the speech-preparation episode rather than a general record of Haber’s views or of the wider debate.[14]

Haber also wrote publicly about the challenge he saw in efforts to delegitimize Israel. An article attributed to him called for mobilizing the Jewish people to “fight back against the ubiquitous de-legitimization process, against the indifference, and possibly also against the despair among us.”[19] A separate account identifies him as a former press secretary to Rabin and summarizes a 1999 article in which he questioned the political and religious views of some American-born Israelis he knew.[20]