Last update - 00:00 24/10/2007
Leaders mark Rabin's death; Olmert: Bullets can't stop peace
By DPA and Haaretz Service
Israeli leaders gathered at the cemetery at Mount Herzl Wednesday afternoon to mark the 12th anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was gunned down by a religious ultra-nationalist opposed to peace moves let by Rabin's government.
Yigal Amir, now serving life imprisonment, pumped three bullets into Rabin's back as the premier was leaving a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995. State ceremonies marking the anniversary of the assassination are held on the Hebrew calendar date, though an annual memorial ceremony will also be held on November 3 in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, where the assassination occurred 12 years ago.
Speaking at the official ceremony Wednesday afternoon, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "Israel's aspiration for peace will not be stopped by the bullets of a vile assassin."
Rabin's grandson Michael Rabin said, "It has been twelve years since we had our last conversation. So much has happened since the night you were murdered because of your political ways and I was sitting at home studying for a social studies test. When I was deep into my studies I didn't know that the cruel and painful lesson on the limitations of democracy in Israel was still to come. And I, as a citizen, but more than that as a grandson, soon will pay a high, personal price."
President Shimon Peres said Amir had failed in his goal of derailing the peace process with the Palestinians, which was now being renewed.
"We were a strong people, we remain a strong people, stronger than any shock or crisis," said Peres, who was foreign minister at the time of the assassination and had left the rally just ahead of Rabin. Amir told interrogators he did not shoot Peres because he was a "secondary target."
Following the ceremony, the Knesset plenum convened for a special memorial meeting.
At the Knesset meeting, Olmert dedicated his address to linking Rabin's path toward peace to the path he himself has undertaken. He spoke about the suffering of the Palestinian people, saying "for the sake of fairness, it must be said that the opposite side has also experienced pain, loss and distress. We must recognize the pain of the Palestinians."
Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik also addressed the plenum, and harshly criticized the family of Rabin's assassin, Amir. "We have called this despicable man a stray weed, but we were wrong. This terrible man's roots, and the origins of his evil, lie firmly within his family, who supports his views and his actions. To these people I wish to say: Israel's G-d is not your G-d, and your G-d is not ours. Your country is not our country. You have no part in the land of Israel."
In his address before the Knesset, opposition leader and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu set out to prove that Rabin's legacy included strong opposition to the division of Jerusalem. He said that he chose to focus on this topic in order to "point this out to those who claim they are followers of Rabin's way, yet call for the division of Israel."
"Rabin's way was clear: a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty," Netanyahu added.
The assassination, one of the most traumatic events in Israel's history, came amid a period of heightened, almost overbearing tensions between hawks and doves, sparked by the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo interim peace accords.
While doves and centrists welcomed the accords as paving the way to peace with the Palestinians, hawks, including nationalist and religious Israelis, were aghast at the idea of Israel giving up parts of the West Bank, which they consider Israel's biblical homeland.
In the months and weeks leading up to the assassination, Rabin and his government were subject to intense incitement from their opponents, and chants of "death to Rabin" heard at least one anti- Oslo rally.
Amir, who never denied his actions, was sentenced to life in prison. But a small but vocal group of ultra-nationalist Israelis are campaigning for him to be set free.
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