Last update - 00:00 01/11/2006
All but four MKs boycott Rabin memorial at Pres. Residence
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Only four members of Knesset attended a memorial ceremony at the President's Residence on Wednesday marking 11 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Dozens of other MKs had announced they would boycott the ceremony over the attendence of President Moshe Katsav, who stands to be indicted on a litany of charges, including two counts of rape.
Rabin's daughter Dalia said Wednesday that she was not angry at the decision by dozens of influential figures to boycott the ceremony, held a day before the official Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day.
"Most of the public and members of the arts world said that they would not go to the President's Residence, and the family decided that we would attend in order to be with the children doing the ceremony and to honor the presidential institution," Dalia Rabin-Pelossof told Army Radio.
Rabin-Pelossof and her brother, Yuval Rabin, told the press earlier that they were embarrassed by the event but that their absence could taint their father's memory.
The ceremony has been held in the President's Residence for six years, but this is the first year it has the standing of a state ceremony.
Rabin family members have boycotted it over the last four years to protest Katsav's 2001 pardon of Margalit Har-Shefi, a friend of jailed assassin Yigal Amir, who was convicted for not reporting what she knew about plans to assassinate Rabin.
Katsav, who has recently curtailed his official activities in the wake of a police investigation of the alleged rape and other offenses, announced that he would not participate in Wednesday's Knesset session to mark the assassination.
Katsav is also planning to participate in the state memorial service at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem Thursday.