Twenty-Third Rabin Memorial Spotlights Cracks in Israeli Society

Twenty-three years after the assassination of Israeli Premier Yitzchak Rabin, the divisions that caused his murder are deeper, more painful than ever. Today, speeches at aniversary events, including those made at a youth rally by Rabin’s grandchildren, Noa Rotman and Yonatan Ben-Artzi were used to attack the present government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the backdrop posters on stage at Karmiel’s Saturday night memorial concert featuring singer and actress Meital Trabelsi   had advised ‘we do not have to agree in order to live together’, President Reuven Rivlin today warned not only that the memory of Rabin and his death were being eroded but also that incitement to violence posed a threat to  the fabric of Israeli society.

Speaking at the national memorial event held at his official Jerusalem residence, Mr Rivlin asked: “....Have we healed? Well, I’m not sure. I don’t know”.

He said that the generations that had first known Rabin as a young commander in 1948, then as chief of staff in 1967 and had gone on to experience his murder “will not forget nor forgive”. The new challenge would be whether future generations who neither knew him nor experienced his death would remember him.

Right-wing extremist Yigal Amir, who shot Mr Rabin to death on November 4, 1995 following a rally the Prime Minister had organised marking the Oslo Accords continues to serve a whole life sentence for his crime despite campaigns for his release.

© Natalie Wood (21 October 2018)