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`He's A Hero'

Could a Yigal Amir fan club of teen-age girls signi fy
something deeper?

AP/12 1 KE REN

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Yigal Amir smiles in a Tel Aviv court.

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ine months after Yitzhak
Rabin's assassination, two
weeks after the Supreme
Court Confirmed Yigal
.Amir's life sentence, the witches'
brew is still bubbling.
Last weekend, Israel Televi-
sion unearthed a Yigal Amir fan
club among teen-age girls in the
Negev development town of Kiry-
at Gat.
Three 17-year-olds, half hid-
den by straw hats fashionable
enough to wear to the Royal As-
cot races, flaunted scrap books
they had made of everything
written by and about the Prime
Minister's murderer. They said
lots of their friends shared their
admiration for him, though their
parents were divided.
The girls sent Mr. Amir fan
letters. At least one had played
truant from the aptly-named
"Gross" High School to attend his
trial. "It was fun," she smirked.
"He smiled at me. I love him. He
has this broad smile, a sweet
smile, very attractive."
A second chipped in: "In my
view, he's a very goodlooking boy,
from every aspect. He's smart;
he's attractive; he's everything."
Maybe, but didn't he shoot the
Prime Minister? "He's a hero,"
she retorted. "He did something,
not like the apathetic people who
watched from the sidelines and
did nothing."
A third girl insisted that Mr.
Amir killed with good intentions.
"He cared about his people and
his country. And the fact that Ra-
bin didn't care doesn't mean that
everyone should be like that. As
I see it, Rabin was a victim of the
peace, just like he said about all
the people who were murdered
on the buses and by car bombs."
Mr. Rabin's family and friends
condemned not only the Kiryat

Gat groupies, but the state reli-
gious educational system which,
they contended, nurtured both
the assassin and the adulation.
Gross is a state religious high
school, controlled by the Nation-
al Religious Party, whose leader,
Zevulun Hammer, is now the Ed-
ucation Minister.
The late Prime Minister's wid-
ow, Leah Rabin, disputed Or- r."\
thodox claims that the
phenomenon was marginal. "It's
a very dangerous phenomenon,"
she said, "which, if investigated,
will reveal many young admir-
ers. There is a huge public which
thinks the murder was a good
thing, following the systematic,
rabid incitement he endured."
Eitan Haber, Mr. Rabin's for-
mer bureau chief, added: "Three
stupid girls from Kiryat Gat don't
concern me. What does concern
me much more is the large num-
ber of adult citizens in the state
of Israel who think as they do.
Right in front of our eyes, there
are two peoples growing here
with no cultural or social con-
nection between them."
Yossi Sarid, chairman of the
militantly secular Meretz,
blamed the religious Zionist ed-
ucational network. "I have al-
ways thought," the former
Environment Minister said, "that
Yigal Amir was not the only evil
man who justified his deeds with
Torah learning. Their Torah,
which is a Torah of death and not
of life, creates many evil men. A
group for whom Yigal Amir is a
hero is a wild group of idolators."
The national religious estab-
lishment united to denounce the
fan club. But, as after the assas-
sination itself, it hit back at those
it accused of smearing a whole
HERO page 26