The second assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

They say time heals anguish and loss. As is only natural, the passage of years has dulled the anguish and loss over the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish terrorist, Yigal Amir, in November 1995. The political heroes of Rabin's assassin, who incited against Rabin in the months that preceded his death, are no longer content with the erosion of memory. The right-wing settlers and their supporters stubbornly reject any responsibility for the vitriolic wave of incitement that preceded the murder and caused the murderer, by his own admission, to shoot a prime minister in the back. The murder fatally sabotaged the Oslo peace agreement that Rabin had signed two years earlier with the Palestinians and helped the right wing, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, to inherit the state through subsequent elections, held in 1996. Now, on the 23rd anniversary of Rabin's assassination, the very same people who led the campaign against those they dubbed “Oslo criminals” have also declared themselves its victims, generously aided by the silent majority.

Shortly after the annual memorial rally held in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Nov. 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “It is regrettable that the memorial ceremony for the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin became a political conference. Those who champion freedom of expression, try to silence anyone who disagrees with them.” Yair Netanyahu, his son and mouthpiece, then shared a Facebook post that said, “Proportions. One memorial day for 24,000 Israeli fallen; one memorial day for 6 million Holocaust fallen; 10 memorial days for Rabin murder.”

The chair of HaBayit HaYehudi, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, called the rally a “shameful leftist protest.” The patron of the most radical among the settlers, Bennett added for good measure, “The right did not kill Rabin, Yigal Amir did.” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein went so far as to claim that it was doubtful that the assassin had achieved his goal, that is, stopping the Oslo peace process. If he did achieve any goals, Edelstein asserted, “They were the opposite from what Yigal Amir was intending to accomplish.” In other words, the political left was the big winner, at the expense of the right.

It fell to Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, a leading opponent of the Oslo Accords, to play the role of chief victim. Hanegbi, who had followed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the Likud to Kadima and then returned to the Likud, attributed short-term political motives to those who booed his speech at the Rabin rally. “I spoke to the people, and to the people's hearts,” he said after the event. He also asserted, “The attempt to attribute a murder by one zealot to half of the people was unsuccessful. We won't leave the sadness and longing we have to the other side of the political map. Our pain is the same, and therefore I'm glad I came.”