LARRY DERFNER

ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

s I first sat down to write this essay, a few days be-
fore Rosh Hashanah, Israel began going through
a spurt of Yitzhak Rabin consciousness.
It began a few weeks earlier with the haredi
death threats and incitement against Supreme
Court President Aharon Barak over the Bar-
Ilan Street affair. Now that Mr. Barak is un-
der 'round-the-clock protection by the Shin
Bet security service, it is noted, in disgust
and bitterness, that such a thing could
happen 10 months after the prime min-
ister was assassinated by a Jewish fa-
natic.
When there was the Ne-
tanyahu-Arafat meeting, left-wing
politicians and commentators all made the connection to
Rabin, saying the meeting was his revenge and ultimate
victory over the Likud leader.
Finally, there were the end-of-the-year retrospectives.
Israel Television's angle on the assassination was that it
had been forgotten. A poll found that 35 percent of Israelis
considered Rabin's murder the Event of the Year — land-
ing it in second place behind the election, which got 37 per-
cent.
Israelis are now being reminded of Rabin with the re-
minder that they have forgotten him. This paradoxical,
back-handed memorialization has continued through the
official memorial ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 24 (or
Chesvhan 11, the Hebrew date of the murder). It will cul-
minate on Nov. 4, the English date. After that time, any-
body who mentions Rabin or sighs that he's been forgotten
will find himself disinvited to parties, or, if he's in the wrong
neighborhood, cursed, kicked and told to get on his horse.
We are in the interlude between the casually purpose-
ful forgetting of Rabin and the determined riddance of his
memory from any but the shallowest level of the public
mind.
The forgetting became official on June 18, in the Kn.es-
set, at the swearing-in of the new prime minister and cab
inet. President Ezer Weizman gave the opening speech
and mansged not to mention the murder. Binyarnin Ne
tanyahu did the same.
The only reason they were there, the only reason for ear-
ly elections, was because Rabin was dead.
With the sense so sharp that one era was ending and
a new one beginnin.g, with all their blather about peace
and security and unity and challenges, neither found the
assassination alarming enough, instructive enough, griev-
ous enough or historic enough to merit mention.
A couple of weeks later, Mr. Netanyahu made sure to