[[Yitzhak Rabin]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] politician and military leader who served as Prime Minister of [[Israel]] and Defense Minister. He was a rival of [[Shimon Peres]] within the [[Labor Party]].[^1] As army chief of operations, [[Yitzhak Rabin]] was among the old-fashioned military men, including [[Yigal Allon]] and [[Ariel Sharon]], who believed that [[Israel]]'s essential advantage over the Arabs was the quality and training of its military personnel. To these men, nuclear weapons were nothing more than a great equalizer, and they argued that an [[Egypt]] equipped with the bomb would be far more dangerous to [[Israel]] than an [[Egypt]] limited to conventional arms.[^2] As Defense Minister, [[Yitzhak Rabin|Rabin]] did not try to impede the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee|Joint Committee's]] arms operations, as he had no interest in helping [[Shimon Peres|Peres]]. However, he unceremoniously and disrespectfully threw [[Oliver North]] out of his office when the [[Contras]] were mentioned, thwarting [[Oliver North|North's]] attempts to set up his second channel.[^1] [[Yitzhak Rabin|Rabin]] replaced [[Shimon Peres]] as leader of the [[Labor Party]] and became Prime Minister of [[Israel]] in 1992 after the national elections, replacing [[Yitzhak Shamir]].[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992. (Hereafter, "Profits of War") [^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 9.