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MOURNING page 60

the ultimate act of extremism of
a movement that had grown
more and more extreme. He was
not alone, and he wasn't only an
assassin: he was also a terrorist,
perhaps a revolutionary. And
while Rabin's murder shocked
everyone, it surprised no one; the
word had been on the street for
over two years.
On second consideration, peo-
ple concluded that the closest
comparison to this assassination
was Lincoln's: a political murder
coming on the background of a
bitterly divided nation. But they
are still different: Lincoln was
killed after America ended its
Civil War. In Israel there was no
civil war, but there was an ex-
plosive division in the country
caused by a political process that
will continue, that will acceler-
ate, after his death. While part
of Israel's wound is healing, there
is the potential that it will reopen,
worse than before.
In a country of 5.5 million,
there are thousands of Israelis
who are happy over Rabin's mur-
der. "Rabin was the first victim
of peace — Peres is next in line,"
was scrawled on a wall in Bnei
Brak.
"If there is another assassina-
tion, there will be a revolution in
this country," said political com-
mentator Yosef "Tommy" Lapid.
But seeing how politicians are
surrounded by super-alert securi-
ty details these days, even at
memorial services, is not sad, it's
comforting. If it signals a loss of in-
nocence, it also signals maturity.
And this soul-searching isn't
going far enough. Too many peo-
ple on the religious far-right have
learned the lesson that it's wrong
to kill a Jew, any Jew, but
haven't learned that it's equally
wrong to kill an Arab. Too many
of them are ready to condemn Yi-
gal Amir unconditionally, but still
have a soft place in their hearts
for Baruch Goldstein.
Israel, unfortunately, is still a

country where the assassin's dev-
astated mother, Geula, can say,
"I wouldn't wish this on any Jew-
ish mother — not even on an
Arab mother or a gentile," and it
can pass unprotested.
At Ichilov Hospital, after Mr.
Rabin died there, a man in the
crowd outside said, "That's it —
this country is finished." I don't
think he would have said that the
next day. The mourners started
coming to Kikar Malchei Yisrael,
and they kept coming.
Especially the young, the teen-
agers, they filled the square day
after night after day with their
tears and songs and flowers and
scrawled promises. "We will nev-
er be silent again," read one.
The Rabin assassination was
a public event and a personal
one. Every Israeli remembers
where he was when he heard the
news; every Israeli has a few im-
ages in his mind that have a spe-
cial meaning. In the first two
days after the murder, there
were times I wondered whether
I wanted to raise my four-month-
old son Alon, my only child, in
this country. I knew that politi-
cal assassinations took place al-
most everywhere, but I also knew
that in Israel there was unusu-
ally high potential for the hatred
and killing, by Arabs and Jews,
to spiral out of control.
On the second day after, my
wife Pippa and I took Alon to
Kikar Malchei Yisrael. We stood
with the crowds around the cir-
cles of teen-agers sitting on the
ground, singing and playing gui-
tars. We went to the wall under-
neath the parking structure, a
few yards from where the bullets
hit Yitzhak Rabin and brought
him down. We saw the candles
being lit. We saw the young peo-
ple writing their messages on the
wall with such seriousness, such
gravity in their faces. And in an
instant, in a burst, I knew: I want
my son's future to be with these
people, in this country. ❑

Torchbearers Of Death

In the wake of the Rabin assassination,. Israel's
Zionist-Orthodox leaders are divided on where their
movement went wrong.

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wave of national soul-
searching was both nat-
ural and appropriate
Israel following the assas-
sination of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin. After all, anyone
who has lived in the country long
enough to have mastered the lan-
guage cannot help but be aware
of a deep strain of violence in Is-
raeli society.
Prompted by Leah Rabin, Is-
rael's silent majority suffered

pangs of conscience for express-
ing its support of the prime min-
ister only after it was too late.
The country's legal establish-
ment, from the attorney-general
down, openly rued its leniency to-
ward citizens who brazenly flout-
ed the law and challenged the
tenets of democracy.
But perhaps the most troubled
and troubling sector of the Israeli
public that has been forced to
take stock of itself in the wake of

N

