Clinton: ‘Stay the Righteous Course’ : Tribute: President promises U.S. support for Israel, compares Rabin to Moses.

President Clinton, in an affecting tribute to slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on Monday urged the Israeli people to “stay the righteous course” of peace blazed by their fallen leader and promised that the United States will stand behind them in their hour of sorrow.

Speaking at a large service for the assassinated Israeli leader, Clinton compared Rabin to Moses as he led the Jewish people from bondage to freedom.

As God did not forsake the children of Israel, Clinton said in biblical allusion, “neither will America forsake you.”

The President led the largest delegation of U.S. officials to attend a foreign leader’s funeral. Former Presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, seven Cabinet officers, two former secretaries of state and more than three dozen members of Congress were among those joining Clinton.

In a 10-minute eulogy, Clinton called Rabin a martyr for peace and a “victim of hate.” Rabin was killed in Tel Aviv on Saturday night by Jewish law student Yigal Amir, acting on what Amir said were God’s orders. Amir opposed Rabin for granting territory to the Palestinians in exchange for pledges of peace.

Clinton, his head covered by a black skullcap, said that the grieving nation must continue Rabin’s efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab neighbors. “Now it falls to all of us who love peace and all of us who loved him to carry on the struggle to which he gave life and for which he gave his life,” the President said.

Aides said later that the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were moved to tears by the eloquent remarks a few minutes later of Rabin’s teen-age granddaughter, Noa Ben Artzi, who poignantly recalled “the caress that you placed on my shoulder and the warm hug that you saved only for us.”

After the formal ceremony, the Clintons moved to Rabin’s grave site, where they silently witnessed the interment.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) knelt at the open grave, opened a small paper bag containing soil from the grave of his brother John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, and sprinkled a handful of dirt on Rabin’s polished coffin.

Rabin’s widow, Leah, shed a tear as she watched Kennedy’s small act of homage.

Following Rabin’s burial, Clinton met privately with Israeli President Ezer Weizman, acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Jordan’s King Hussein, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel’s conservative Likud Party and a staunch opponent of Rabin’s peace initiatives.

In the meeting with Weizman, the largely ceremonial head of state, Clinton discussed Israel’s law of succession and the prospects for piecing together a governing coalition led by Peres, Rabin’s close political ally.

Peres, who was foreign minister under Rabin, met later in the evening with the bipartisan congressional leadership.

The U.S. leaders were not seeking Israel’s formal commitment to continue the peace process but rather the “shared sense of legacy” that Rabin left the Israeli people, according to White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

On Air Force One earlier, Clinton, Bush and Carter spoke briefly with reporters. Clinton said that the presence of three Presidents representing both parties signaled “decades of dedication to the cause of peace here--from the work President Carter did with the Camp David accords to the work President Bush did in starting this process--the United States is standing with Israel and standing for the cause of peace. And we’re standing strong and deep.”

Bush recalled a visit by the late prime minister to his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me., and said that he counted Rabin among his true friends.

Carter said that the United States will not press Israel to accelerate the search for peace but will allow the nation to absorb its shock and grief in its own way and on its own schedule.

“But I think it’s important too for the Israelis to not only know that we are supportive of Israel but also supportive of the peace process,” Carter said. “And our coming, I think, is closely related to that.”

In his eulogy, Clinton remembered Rabin’s words in September as he joined Arab leaders in Washington to ratify the second phase of autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Clinton said Rabin marveled at the appearance on a single platform of the king of Jordan, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the prime minister and foreign minister of Israel.

“The sight you see before you was impossible, was unthinkable, just three years ago,” Clinton quoted Rabin as saying then. “Only poets dreamt of it. And to our great pain, soldier and civilian went to their deaths to make this moment possible.”

Clinton said: “Today, my fellow citizens of the world, I ask all of you to take a good, hard look at this picture. Look at the leaders from all over the Middle East and around the world who have journeyed here today for Yitzhak Rabin and for peace. Though we no longer hear his deep and booming voice, it is he who has brought us together again here in word and deed for peace.”