A tropical rainstorm had chased away visitors. His assassin, Jewish extremist Yigal Amir, opposed Rabin’s goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
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One of those people was Israel Oz. He knew Rabin personally, as a staff member to a Cabinet minister in the Rabin administration.
“It’s not easy for me to walk here”, Oz said, wearing sunglasses despite the overcast weather. We pray for healing for the injured and strength for all the families affected by this renewed violence.
When Rabin became prime minster he made another significant contribution in trying to reconcile Israel’s security needs and interests with an effort to bring about peace agreements with the Palestinians and complete the cycle of peace with our immediate neighbours.
In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Rabin challenges us all: “We will pursue the course of peace with determination and fortitude”. According to a poll published in Maariv, a daily Israeli paper, a majority of Israelis agree with him.
They believe in a kind of dream that is not possible, she said. “There was hope, and now not so much”.
Initially, the assassination seemed to spark a desire for unity in a traumatized country, and Rabin’s political heirs appeared poised to continue his path. Although Rabin himself was rarely precise on the matter, most people assumed this meant a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Many Israelis are more sceptical, pointing out that two subsequent rounds of peace talks, in 2000 and 2008, both collapsed without a deal. “What he said to the crowd that night remains true for all of you”. Under Abbas, Palestinians who merely engage in commerce with Israelis or buy Israeli products have been arrested and discredited by name.
Dan Ephron, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek whose book Killing a King chronicles the assassination, said the American approach has also changed in the last 20 years. “It’s our future. If we don’t make a change, we won’t be able to exist as a democracy; we will be forced into inequality and revoking the rights of the other”, he said.
“Peace is necessary, because it’s the only way to ensure true and lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians”.
He understood that peace does not automatically produce security, and it has to be fortified by solid security arrangements. All of it is ours. “We did not come here to apologize for that”.
“We love you Dad and will do our best to live respectful, loving lives and pass along ‘acts of kindness, ‘” the post concluded. “Right now we are in the process of maturing, maybe even becoming an adult eventually”.
Yet while Israelis may be inching closer together, their differences over Rabin remain. Amir had killed Rabin to put a stop to his policies, and Netanyahu later obliged in his opposition to Oslo. Former president Shimon Peres and former prime minister Ehud Barak were also seated on the stage.
Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995 following a pro-peace rally at the same Tel Aviv plaza.
“He risked his life to create and defend Israel”, the former U.S. president said. But when Rabin was murdered, instigated by Netanyahu’s inciting rhetoric of hatred, conflict and racism, the peace accords between Israel and Egypt and Jordan were reduced to farcical submissions of Arab justice to Israel arrogance and racial superiority.
By the eve of his murder, due to mounting Palestinian terrorism, Rabin was seriously considering abrogating the Oslo process entirely.
Speakers and demonstrators took aim at the hardline policies of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Inbar argued that Rabin “believed that [the] transition to peace is a long historic process, …” “We should make this day a symbol of our commitment to the rule of law and accepting each other in spite of disputes”, he said.
Can the Rabin legacy be revived?
Iran wasn’t the only reason for Rabin’s surprise move.
“For those people on what you could call the anti-Zionist religious Right the sense of crisis is greater than ever before”. In the past five weeks, 10 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, while 51 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including 30 said by Israel to be attackers and the rest in clashes. Palestinians grew even more skeptical after a Jewish extremist massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron. Instead of evacuating Jewish settlers from the West Bank city, Rabin beefed up the city’s military presence. Participants held banners reading “Enough scaring, yes to hope” and “Peace Now”. What’s clear, however, is just how remote that possibility looks today.
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Police and sharpshooters were positioned on rooftops surrounding the square. A couple of eager photographers roamed around, waiting to take pictures of visitors in the rain.
