Tens of thousands of people attended a memorial rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to mark nine years since the murder of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
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Organizers decided not to invite politicians to speak this year in order to make the rally at Rabin Square more stately and to appeal to an audience that may have stayed away due to the political nature of past ceremonies. Approximately 80,000 people were reportedly in attendance, an increase over last year.
MK Zahava Gal-On (Yahad) said she would boycott the memorial rally, due to the organizers' decision not to allow political speeches.
Retired Supreme Court president Justice Meir Shamgar, who has made limited public appearances, agreed to speak at the request of the slain prime minister's daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, who also made a speech, calling the assassin "no `errant weed'" and saying the murder was committed with planning and support.
Shimon Peres was in attendence, seated behind a reinforced glass partition.
Other speakers included former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Israel Meir Lau, president of Ben-Gurion University Avishay Braverman, and actress Osnat Vishinsky, the mother of felled Israel Defense Forces soldier Lior Vishinsky, who was killed in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Singers Arkadi Duchin, Tzvika Pik, and Shlomo Gronich performed, along with a choir of Arab children.
The organizers said that, in light of the incitement of recent months, the slogan for this year's rally was "Yes to Peace, No to Violence," which was the slogan used for the rally after which Rabin was murdered
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