Twelve Years Later, Rabin’s Assassination Still An Open Wound
As they commemorate a national tragedy, many Israelis still wonder whether their political fate might have been different if Yitzhak Rabin had lived, says PJM Tel Aviv editor Allison Kaplan Sommer.
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My kids walked to school this morning, leaving the house and melting in a crowd of children heading down the street, all wearing white shirts and solemn expressions on their faces.
As I type these words, they are standing at attention at their school ceremonies, marking a national trauma that happened before they were born and remembering a leader they never knew - Yitzhak Rabin. The official ceremonies take place on the Hebrew anniversary of the event, which took place on Nov. 4, 1995.
Every year around the anniversary the Israeli media seems to come up with an appropriately-timed revelation regarding the assassination. This year it was the release of the tape of Yigal Amir’s interrogation by police immediately after he killed Rabin.
He confessed in a chillingly matter-of-fact and utterly unrepentant manner in a transcript published in the country’s largest Hebrew daily, Yediot Aharonot:
Amir: “I arrived today at 8:15 from my home. There were many police and security around. Then Rabin approached. Peres was walking behind him, but I didn’t shoot him because he was a secondary target. When Rabin came down the stairs with his security people I got close to him as he was getting into his car. I shot three bullets. Then the security people jumped on me. I let go of the gun.”
Interrogator: “When you went there, were you aware of where you were going and what your intention was?”
Amir: “To kill Rabin.”
Interrogator: “To kill Rabin?”
Amir: “No, not to kill, to silence him politically.”
Interrogator: “And how did you plan to accomplish this?”
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3 Comments
David Thomson:“But there is one big difference - unlike Kennedy’s assassin, Rabin’s killer, Yigal Amir is alive, which keeps alive the focal point of the pain of the assassination.”
Lee Harvey Oswald’s death provided an opportunity for America’s leftist community to con many people into believing President Kennedy was assassinated by right-wing fanatics and the bosses of the “evil” military-industrial complex. The reality, of course, is that the young murderer was a convinced Communist. I highly recommend James Piereson’s book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism. I’m not sure what Allison Kaplan Sommer thinks overall of the Kennedy assassination, but I suspect she embraces the leftist myth that Kennedy was targeted due to his efforts on behalf of civil rights.
Yigal Amir is a murderer and should be condemned by all Israelis. The end does not justify the means. Yes, Yitzhak Rabin was naive. He foolishly trusted Israel’s enemies to do the right thing and placed his country’s citizens in great danger. Nonetheless, murder is never a legitimate option. It destroys the very foundation of a viable society. Lawless savagery inevitably replaces the political process. Also, why is Amir about to become a father? What type of nonsense is this? Isn’t he suppose to be in prison?
Oct 24, 2007 - 1:16 pm P. Ami:Heaven forbid that assassinations should be considered appropriate methods for dealing with traitors. Rabin put his people, those that elected him and gave him power, in a position to give up their hard earned land for a piece of worthless paper. I don’t think Rabin was naive. He sold out his country. Perez today tries to convince Israeli business people that land and nationality play no role in today’s world. He makes speeches to the international elite of Israel convincing them that the best way to make more money is to give up the dream of a real Jewish homeland. Meanwhile, Perez makes much of his money from land ownership. Rabin, Perez, Olmert and the rest are not from the “Peace Camp”. They are from the sell out your country camp. The cruelty of these people is criminal. They expect normal, everyday people to sacrifice their sons and daughters, to give up their homes and businesses, to nullify their birthright and foreswear the dreams of their ancestors all so a few well placed luminary and their sycophants can make off with blood money. Rabin shouldn’t have been murdered, but its a shame that one man did for Israel what the system should have done for itself.
Oct 25, 2007 - 10:38 pm Alex:Excuse me, but for whom exactly Rabin’s death is an open wound? Surely not for the majority of Israelis. Nor for the soldiers whom Rabin left on the battlefield while fleeing in 1948.
Oct 28, 2007 - 5:48 amAnd it has been proved so persuasively (e.g., http://samsonblinded.org/blog/how-rabin-was-killed.htm ) that the right wing didn’t kill Rabin.