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Advertising in The Jewish News Gets Results
Place Your Ad Today. Call 354-6060

The Plot Thickens
As Theories Formulate

Eyal founder Avishai Raviv is at the center
of a spiral of conspiracy theories.

INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

he aftermath of a political
assassination that is not
riddled with rumors and
theories about a conspira-
cy would somehow not be quite
normal.
It, therefore, seems natural
that such theories have become
almost a cottage industry in Is-
rael. First broached by Professor
Michael Harsegor, a historian at
Tel Aviv University who based
his musings less on present evi-
dence than on a wealth of his-
torical precedent, the real flood
of innuendo about a plot by the
Shabak (General Security Ser-
vices) — in this case, a scheme to
stage an assassination that went
tragically awry — has been corn-
ing from the far right.
And it has been pushed par-
ticularly hard ever since the leak
(from anonymous "military" and
"security service" sources) that
Avishai Raviv, one of the "celebri-
ties" of Kach and like-minded
groups, was an informer for the
Shabak. From there it seemed
almost natural to conclude that
prime minister was using the
Shabak to discredit his political
opponents; that Mr. Raviv was
not merely an informer but a fre-
netic agent provocateur solely re-
sponsible for the incitement that
climaxed in the assassination;
and hence (by the tortuous logic
that often marks conspiracy the-
ories) that Mr. Rabin was re-
sponsible for his own violent end.
So far, all the elements of the
theory — including Mr. Raviv's
relationship with the Shabak —
remain pure (and some say out-
landish) conjecture. Despite re-
peated denials by both the prime
minister's spokeswoman and Mr.
Raviv himself, it is generally ac-
cepted that he was reporting to
the Shabak. But although, after
weeks of heightened scrutiny by
the media, we know many details
about Mr. Raviv, there is still lit-
tle to prove that he was the cre-
ation of the Shabak that the right
makes him out to be.
Born in the year of the Six-Day
War, Mr. Raviv is in some ways
an anomaly, in others emblem-
atic of the course Israel has tak-
en since then.
Raised in Holon, a lower-mid-
dle-class suburb of Tel Aviv, by
parents who were loyal to the
predecessor of the Labor Party),
Mr. Raviv joined the Labor Par-
ty's youth movement and played
soccer and basketball with the lo-
cal Labor-backed teams. A sixth-

T

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Avishai Raviv: A Kahane disciple.

generation sabra on his mother's
side, he describes himself as hav-
ing been "very Zionistic" with
"lots ofJewish pride."
Yet, by the early 1980s Mr. Ra-
viv's teen-age years featured a gap
between "Jewish pride" and the
image of the Labor Party. These
were the years of Menachem Be-
gin's governments, the heyday of
Jewish nationalism, when La-
borites were portrayed as shallow
technocrats devoid ofJewish val-
ues. Mr. Raviv's heroes then were
the pioneers of Gush Emunim, the
group redeeming their homeland
by settling throughout Judea and
Samaria.
Even the members of the "Jew-
ish underground," exposed by the
Shabak in those years, were char-
acterized as "wonderful young
men" (Yitzhak Shamir's phrase)
who had erred through excess
and were quickly forgiven (and
shown official clemency).
In 1983, while still in high
school, Mr. Raviv attended a lo-
cal rally and fell in love at first
sight. The object of his infatua-
tion was Rabbi Meir Kahane.
"His genuine love, his pride
and strength led me the next day
to the Kach office in Tel Aviv,"
Mr. Raviv related in a recent in-
terview, and soon after he be-
came head of Kach's youth wing
in Tel Aviv.
Most commentators says that
Mr. Raviv was recruited during,
or after, his military service, done
in the elite Givati Brigade. Mr.
Raviv so enjoyed his army stint
that he considered a military ca-
reer. But the idea was short-cir-
cuited by an accident in which he
was shot in the leg, leaving him
with a permanent handicap.
After the army, Mr. Raviv com-
pleted his "conversion" as a Kahane

