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We said the state of Israel is
an act of God. We said we would
struggle within the state of Israel
against things we thought were
bad. But we never questioned our
allegiance to the state. Our alle-
giance is unconditional."
So the Rabin assassination has
had a sobering effect. Moderate
religious Zionists are speak-
ing out. Meimad is back on the
road.
But will Rabbi Amital and
Rabbi Ben-Meir re-enter the
Knesset race in 1996? Rabbi Ben-
Meir is cautious, but agrees that

they have to decide within the
next three months.
`The present situation is push-
ing us to run," he said. "But will
that be translated into a political
dividend? We need 40,000 votes
to elect two MKs, the minimum
that would give us any influence.
"We'll undertake polls. We'll
see how much money we can
raise for a campaign. And then
we shall have to decide: Can we
have more impact in the Knes-
set, or as an extra-parliamentary
body, like Gush Emunim or
Peace Now?" ❑

Crossing The Line
In Netanyahu's Rhetoric

RICHARD E. VATZ AND LEE S. WEINBERG SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

inyamin Netanyahu is
known to American tele-
vision audiences as an ar-
ticulate advocate for the
Likud Party. He comes across as
a reasonable leader who would
be the first to reject the ugly and
provocative name-calling and in-
vective that preceded the assas-
sination of Yitzhak Rabin.
In Israel, however, his role has
been more ambiguous. On one
hand, he saw himself as Israel's
"Nixon," the man who was ide-
ologically well-placed to make
peace with the Palestinians, just
as the former American presi-
dent did with China.
Moreover, as he has claimed
often since the assassination, he
never was one to participate in
the ugly rhetoric directed at Mr.
Rabin, rhetoric that included
calling the prime minister a
"Nazi," and frequent calls for
"Death to Rabin." The Likud
Party, he reminds us, had
teamed up with the Labor Par-
ty to ban Meir Kahane from the
Knesset. Following the assassi-
nation of Mr. Rabin, in fact, Mr.
Netanyahu called for Shimon
Peres to form a new government
without any consideration for
Likud.
On the other hand, both Mr.
Netanyahu and the Likud Par-
ty showed an unwillingness to
seriously challenge the increas-
ingly hostile rhetoric aimed at
Mr. Rabin. Kach, the banned Ka-
hane group, would unfurl its col-
ors with impunity at Likud
rallies. Mr. Netanyahu himself
claimed not to have seen effigies
of Mr. Rabin at Likud meetings,
yet Leah Rabin, the prime min-
ister's widow, insists that he did,
a fact she offers as evidence of

B

Richard E. Vatz is professor of
rhetoric at Towson State Univ.
Lee S. Weinberg is associate
• professor in the Graduate School
of Public and International
Affairs at the University of
Pittsburgh.

Mr. Netanyahu's "complicity" in
the assassination.
The unwillingness of Mr. Ne-
tanyahu and the Israeli people
to take steps to stop the vilifica-
tion of Mr. Rabin may have been
due to the assumption that an
assassination "couldn't happen
here." After all, while both the
British-ruled Palestine and Is-
rael had their precedents of vi-
olence, there had never before
been an assassination of a prime
minister.
Perhaps it is human nature to
believe that if something hasn't
happened, it cannot happen. So
it is difficult to mobilize public
opinion regarding an event that
is merely hypothetical. In Israel,
it is reported that the accused as-
sassin, Yigal Amir, had tried to
assassinate Mr. Rabin previous-
ly, but had failed. Yet the threat
of assassination caused barely a
ripple. Security personnel, as
well as Mr. Rabin himself, failed
to seriously address the threat.
Little can be done to prevent
the "crazed" loner, like John
Hinckley in the Reagan years,
from deciding to shoot a political
leader because such a decision is
reached by thought processes be-
yond our reach. In fact, Mr. Ne-
tanyahu compared Amir to Lee
Harvey Oswald, saying that
looking for his ideological roots
would be futile. But more and
more evidence indicates that the
Rabin assassination was less the
act of a crazed loner and more
the result of a "rational" plot. And
in such a case, the political and
emotional mood of a country and
the background of the event are
extremely relevant and may well
influence the thinking of assas-
sins.
But it is clear that in Israel the
line of ugliness and unaccept-
ability has been crossed. It is
time for all to demand civility —
now. And the first step should be
for political leaders of all stripes
to refuse to tolerate extremist
rhetoric.

❑

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