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Several weeks ago, when I began writing about Yitzhak Rabin to mark the fifth anniversary of his assassination on Nov. 4, I intended to examine the import of the killing, its impact on Israel, the lessons to be learned. I wanted to look at the events of five years ago in the context of Ehud Barak's continuing path to peace, as originally envisioned by Rabin.

I was thinking about Rabin as the handsome, 26-year-old army hero; the unsophisticated speaker with a highly sophisticated mind; the gruff, chain-smoking leader; the loving father and grandfather; the stubborn Zionist who refused to compromise his principles, including the one about not wearing a bullet-proof vest among his own people. He was also the unswerving optimist whose final words after being shot were, "It hurts, but it's not that terrible."

Today, such bittersweet memories are fading. Instead of standing at the threshold of peace, the Middle East appears poised on the verge of war. Past progress seems lost, with violence and bloodshed the outcome of political maneuvering on all sides. Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised. But we were. And, as a result, all of Israel seems to be swinging to the right.

After this seeming collapse of the process that Rabin set in motion, we can't help but take a harder look at the true nature of his legacy. A few possibilities spring to mind:

*First, that Rabin was the only one with enough clout and credibility among Israelis and Arabs to turn Oslo into a final peace agreement in 1993. While Barak has offered even more for peace, the issue is who can pull it off and when. If we lost the opportunity when we lost Rabin then, yes, his assassin changed history.

*Second, that Rabin will mainly be remembered for having engineered a peace process that failed because it was inherently flawed.

*Third, that Rabin's vision was not flawed and that the current violence is just one more inevitable conflict on the road to peace.

Whichever peace-related possibility turns out to be true, Rabin's most important contribution may be something else entirely.

Rabin should always be remembered for the instrumental role he played in creating a lasting strategic partnership between Israel and America. In the words of Henry Kissinger, Rabin got the U.S. government to see Israel's needs as its own. And that will be his legacy as the United States plays a critical role in whatever happens next in the Middle East.

In his military career, Rabin built the Israel Defense Force into a modern army that could project power across the region. That effort culminated in the Six-Day War. And that war changed America's perception of Israel from a geopolitical liability into a regional power whose actions could impact global concerns.

It was Rabin who first understood that Israel could be a strategic asset to the United States. He surprised everyone shortly after the war, when he retired from the army and asked to go to Washington as Israel's ambassador.

The man spoke halting English, and had shown little interest in foreign affairs. As we now know, Rabin's overriding goal was to convince Americans that they needed Israel as much as Israel needed them. And, by the time he returned to Israel in 1973, he had succeeded in doing so. The result was America's military and political support for Israel in the darkest days of the Yom Kippur War.

When he finally entered Israeli politics — as prime minister in the aftermath of the 1973 debacle — it was Rabin who raised the notion that land could and should be sacrificed in favor of the security provided by a stronger strategic alliance with the United States. With Kissinger, he took Israel into indirect but intense contact with Egypt, for the first time forcing Israel to consider trading land for peace. Rabin asserted not only that Sinai was of limited military value to Israel, but also that it was far less important to Israel's security than the United States was.

Thus, in 1975, Israel gave Egypt a small piece of Sinai and the United States sent in Americans to monitor the agreement, supplying Israel with its first F-16 fighter aircraft and promising to consult with Israel on all Middle East issues.

Rabin returned to the Israeli government as defense minister in 1984, becoming prime minister in 1992. The same worldview, coupled with Shimon Peres' determination, guided him in supporting unprecedented, direct negotiations with the Palestinians.

Whatever happens to the Oslo process, a strong Israel closely allied with the United States is something we will always identify as Rabin's great contribution.

As to peace, for now his final words must be his legacy. As we, too, try to focus on the ultimate goal — praying that this violence will pass, and convincing ourselves that we will be able to rebuild and reach peace in the Middle East — we may have no choice but to say, "It hurts, but it's not that terrible."