Conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin have been around almost since the night of the assassination on November 4, 1995. They have increased and expanded, however, as the “weeds” — the radical right elements — gained legitimacy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive governments. The conspiracy theory was heard again this week, and it was not from disciples of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a group that even the far right has considered marginal for the past two decades. This time, it was voiced by a well-known professor, Orientalist Mordechai Kedar.
Kedar is a senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University and has accumulated quite a following over the past few years. He is admired by the radical right not only for his extensive knowledge but mainly because he uses that knowledge and his title to interpret certain facts in a way that is in accordance with his extreme right-wing views.
