The
assassination of Yitzhak Rabin took place on
November 4, 1995
(12th of Cheshvan, 5756 on the Hebrew Calendar) at 21:30, at
the end of a rally in support
of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square
in Tel
Aviv
. The assassin,
Yigal
Amir, a right-wing
religious
Zionist strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative and
particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Prelude
The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister and defense minister
Yitzhak Rabin was the culmination of
Israeli right-wing dissent over the Oslo Peace Process. Rabin,
despite his extensive service in the Israeli military, was
disparaged personally by ultra-orthodox conservatives and Likud
leaders who perceived the Oslo peace process as an attempt to
forfeit the occupied territories (466 Smith). Contrary to Likud’s
accusations, Rabin was focused on the consolidation of Israeli
settlements in the occupied territories. He planned to give the
Palestinian Liberation Organization control of 90% of the West
Bank’s Arab population, while retaining 70% of the land in the
occupied territories (464 Smith). In a speech to the Knesset, Rabin
promised that Israel would continue to have “total freedom of
action in order to fulfill the security aims that touch upon the
permanent solution (464 Smith).”
Nonetheless, hostility continued to mount against Rabin.
Ultra-orthodox conservatives and Likud party leaders believed that
withdrawing from any Jewish land was heresy (466 Smith). Rallies,
organized partially by Likud, became increasingly extreme in tone
(466 Smith).
Likud Leader (and future Prime
Minister)
Benjamin Netanyahu
accused Rabin’s government of being “removed from Jewish
tradition…and Jewish values.” Netanyahu addressed protesters of the
Oslo movement at rallies where posters portrayed Rabin in a Nazi SS
uniform or being target by in the crosshairs of a sniper (466
Smith). Rabin accused Netanyahu of provoking violence, a charge
which Netanyahu strongly rebuffed (466 Smith).
The assassination
After the rally,
Yitzhak Rabin, the
Israeli prime minister and
defense minister, walked
down the city hall steps towards the open door of his car. Three
shots were fired towards Rabin.
The
assassin was Yigal Amir, a former
Hesder student and Orthodox far-right law
student at Bar-Ilan
University
. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace
initiative and especially the signing of the Oslo Accords because
he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny
Jews their “biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by
establishing settlements.” (Smith 458) Amir had come to believe
that Rabin was a din rodef, meaning a ‘pursuer’ who endangered
Jewish lives. The concept of din rodef was not a part of
traditional Jewish law and had been resurrected by ultra-orthodox
rabbis from Brooklyn and the settlements. Under din rodef, Amir
would be justified in removing Rabin from being a threat to Jews in
the territories (Smith 468).
He was immediately subdued by Rabin's bodyguards and arrested with
the murder weapon, a
Beretta 84F
.380 ACP caliber
semi-automatic pistol. He also
shot and slightly wounded Yoram Rubin, a security guard, with a
third bullet that missed Rabin. Incidentally, Rubin was also a
geography student at Bar-Ilan University
at the time.
Rabin was
quickly loaded into an ambulance and rushed to Ichilov
Hospital
at the
Tel Aviv Medical
Center
, where he died on the operating table from blood
loss and a punctured lung within 40 minutes. Rabin's bureau
chief,
Eitan Haber, announced outside
the gates of the hospital:
"The government of Israel announces in consternation,
in great sadness, and in deep sorrow, the death of prime minister
and minister of defence Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by an
assassin, tonight in Tel Aviv.
May his
memory be blessed."
In Rabin's pocket was a blood-stained sheet of paper with the words
of the song
Shir Lashalom ("Song to
Peace"), which ironically dwells on the impossibility of bringing a
dead person back to life and therefore the need for peace.
Reactions and funeral
The
assassination of Rabin was a shock
to the Israeli public.
Rallies and memorials took place near Kings
of Israel Square—later renamed Rabin Square in his honor—as well as
near Rabin's home, the Knesset
building,
and the home of the assassin. Many other
streets and public buildings around the country were
named for Rabin as well.
The
funeral of Rabin took place
on November 6, the day after the assassination, at the Mount Herzl
cemetery in Jerusalem
, where Rabin was buried. Hundreds of world
leaders, including about 80
heads of
state, attended the funeral.
Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Spanish Prime Minister and European Council President-in-Office
Felipe González Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien, acting Israeli Prime
Minister and Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres, United Nations
Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, President of the United
States Bill Clinton, King Hussein of Jordan
, Rabin's
granddaughter Noa Ben-Artzi Filosof, former director-general of the
prime minister's office Shimon Sheves, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, director of the Prime
Minister's Bureau Eitan Haber, and
President of Israel Ezer Weizman.
Yigal Amir's act was and to some extent still is a great source of
embarrassment to the religious Jewish community, initially leading
to a wave of soul-searching and denial (such as through the
Yitzhak
Rabin assassination conspiracy theories).
A national memorial day for Rabin is set on the date of his death
according to the
Hebrew
calendar.
Near-term and Long-term Consequences
Rabin’s assassination had a debilitating effect on future prospects
for Israeli and Palestinian leadership to come together and
implement a series of steps to achieve an agreeable permanent
status agreement. The assassination signaled that Israeli
settlements in the Occupied Territories had become, as it remains
to be today, an explosive point of issue. The lasting influence of
Rabin’s death are surmised by author Charles D. Smith: “The specter
of future assassination or civil war in Israel if many settlements
were removed appears to have encouraged Israeli prime ministers
such as
Ehud Barak to back settlement
expansion while declaring their eagerness for peace with the
Palestinians, and to have led U.S. negotiators to tolerate such
developments for the sake of Israel’s domestic political stability
while aware of their negative impact on the peace process itself.”
(450 Smith)
Additionally, the assassination heightened tension between the
Labor and
Likud parties to an unprecedented
level. The emotionally-charged climate, still simmering a year
after Rabin’s untimely death, was evidenced by Netanyahu’s refusal
to declare the day Rabin was assassinated a national day of
mourning, as well as Rabin’s widow’s subsequent refusal to let
Netanyahu speak at a memorial ceremony for her husband (466
Smith).
The political consequences that unfolded as a result of Rabin’s
passing ultimately derailed the Oslo peace process, and stalled
prospects for another means to achieve a peace for some time. Upon
Rabin’s death,
Shimon Peres succeeded
him as prime minister. Peres almost immediately made good on
several key promises made by the Israeli government at the
Oslo Accords. Smith writes, “Israeli forces
withdrew from the six major population centers in Area A and from
over 400 villages of Area B by the end of 1995. Elections for the
Palestinian self-governing authority were held on January 20, 1996,
thus completing the procedures first outlined in the 1993
Declaration of Principles.” (469 Smith) Peres then promptly called
for early elections, moving them from November to late May, to gain
a mandate to push forward with the peace process. Although
initially leading in the polls, events such as the killing of
Yahya Ayyash and the subsequent
violence proved to be Peres’ downfall. Netanyahu was elected to
office in June 1996 and, as a long-time opponent of the Oslo peace
process, he sought to inhibit its implementation once he was made
head of the Israeli government.
Further reading
- Karpin, Michael and Friedman, Ina, Murder in the Name of
God - The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin, ISBN 0-8050-5749-8.
- Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict A
History with Documents, ISBN 0-3124-3736-6
References
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