FORGETTING RABIN
"We don't think about it anymore."
answer for that crime, the government
had to answer for this one. Since the Oslo
Accords were widely seen as the cause
of the bombings, and Rabin was chiefly
responsible for the Oslo Accords, his mem-
ory was tainted.
In the streets, some demonstrators
shouted praises to Yigal Amir and chant-
ed, "Peres, you're next in line." Again, no
one stopped them. Television commenta-
tors put it down to the "rage" and "sorrow"
of the crowd.
I stood in the throngs outside Dizengoff
Center for days after the bus bombing
there. Demonstrators, mainly teen-agers,
were singing songs to Baruch Goldstein,
and chanting that Mr. Peres was a trai-
tor. One man tried to challenge them, and
was told: "Get out of here, this is no place
for leftists." I hid behind my role as a jour-
nalist. I was afraid to say anything in
these mobs. They were gleeful with ha-
tred, and thoroughly intimidating. All the
pledges made after the assassination —
like, "We will never be silent again" —
weren't worth a damn.
After that, the memory of Rabin's mur-
der went on a long, steady fade. The Is-
raeli public was worn out — it didn't want
to have to grapple with any burning moral
questions.
Most modern-thinking people under-
stand that religious nationalism is a dan-
gerous brew, that it carries the easy
potential to turn violent and beastly. We
Jews are wary of Christian nationalism
or Muslim nationalism, but how can Ju-
daism be carried too far? How can an Is-
raeli be too nationalistic? It would mean
that there were elements in our blood-
stream that were potentially toxic.
America has its Militiamen, its Ku Klux
Klan; Europe has its skinheads and neo-
Nazis; Latin America its fascists; Africa
its tribal tyrannies; the Middle East and
Asia its Muslim fanatics, but Israel? The
Jews? We are pure, from the root to the
branch to the leaf.
Yigal Amir, we have decided, is the ex-
ception that proves the rule. Maybe we
have to add in Kach and Kahane Chai,
but that's as far as it goes. To think that
a hate mania has spread through wide
sections of the population and that some
of the leaders of these parties helped whip
up this frenzy?
No, the Israeli public did not and does
not want to think about this. If we ven-
tured into our country's heart of dark-
ness, we wouldn't rest so easily. And
anybody who challenges us to go to that
frightening place is rejected or ignored
— for example, Leah Rabin. She is no
longer nationally admired, to say the
least.
She's insisted that neither Mr. Weiz-
man nor Mr. Netanyahu speak at her
husband's memorial ceremony. She has
gotten a lot of flack for it, but I applaud
her. Enough diplomacy, enough making
nice, enough forgiveness to those who
never apologized. What's needed is more exactly what the Rabin government is do-
truth.
ing."
But there isn't much demand in Israel
And as for Mr. Netanyahu's claim
for truth; we prefer amnesia.
about having dealt so sternly with "the
About a week after the assassination, few hotheads," let me add one reminder:
Mr. Netanyahu wrote a New York ?times At a rally in Jerusalem in July 1994, I
op-ed piece in which he described the at- heard the roar of thousands, if not tens
tacks on him and the Likud as "Mc- of thousands of protesters, chanting
Carthyism at its purest." He and his through the night, "Rabin is a traitor!"
colleagues were beyond reproach, he All the while Mr. Netanyahu, Mr.
wrote: They had repeatedly condemned Sharon, Yitzhak Shamir and a lineup of
the malicious slurs of Rabin "and the few fight-wing champions continued on with
hotheads who yelled them."
their blistering speeches.
In response, political scientist Shiomo
To remember the assassination is to
Avineri, a kind of Israeli intellectual lau- remember the Two Year Hate that pre-
reate, a man of the most moderate La- ceded it. Israel as a society has chosen to
borite views, reminded Mr. Netanyahu in turn away from memory and judgment.
a Jerusalem Post op-ed: "Just two weeks So Rabin's murder remains unresolved.
before the assassination, you yourself com- Those who, metaphorically, have blood
pared Rabin's Labor Party's activities to on their hands go unpunished. Yigal
the 'methods of Ceaucescu,' who, as many Amir's sin is compounded by our own,
of us remember vividly, was killed as a and it stays with us.
dictator in a violent [Romanian] revolu-
After the week of national grief that
tion." He added, "Don't you realize that
comparing a democratic government to
Nazi collaborators is simply beyond the
pale?"
We don't read many articles like this
in Israel anymore. We don't see the TV
MARC BAKER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
clip that was rerun after the assassina-
tion, the clip of Mr. Netanyahu claiming
The great debate in Is-
that a "very reliable source" told him the
rael and the Diaspora,
Rabin government was "signaling"
underlying the differing
Hamas, via the PLO, that it would not ob-
responses to the 1993
ject to the murder of Jewish settlers. We
Oslo Accords, is the an-
are no longer reminded of what Ariel
swer to the question:
Sharon, now a powerful government min-
What kind of country
ister, told a Chabad newspaper about the
will Israel be in the future? Will she
reported threats on Rabin's life: "In the
continue along her socialist-univer-
'30s the [Soviet] government spread sto-
salist path, following the example of
nes about assassination plots against Stal-
Marc Baker is active in several Zionist
in, which enabled Stalin to eliminate the
organizations in the Detroit area.
high command of the Red Army...This is
followed the assassination, I wrote that
Israel had gone through "a catharsis, a
purifying experience...The decent ma-
jority emerged from the week of mourn-
ing like someone who has survived a
life-threatening illness: with a resolution
to take much better care of themselves
from now on."
Boy, was I wrong. The president of the
Supreme Court is under guard for his
life. One of Aharon Barak's harassers
vows that he will "rot in the grave next
to Rabin's." The Reform Judaism office
in Jerusalem has been receiving hun-
dreds of death threats allegedly from
yeshiva boys, some of whom invoke Yi-
gal Amir's example. It barely causes a
shrug.
Israel's willed forgetting of Rabin's as-
sassination has had its effect: It has
weakened our resistance to evil. We have
become a less courageous people. Our
soul is smaller. ❑
From The Right...
TT
David Ben-Gurion and successive La-
bor governments, or will she reflect the
more individualist-nationalist vision
of Binyamin Netanyahu and his philo-
sophical mentor Vladimir Jabotinsky?
The Oslo Accords were intended to ush-
er in a peaceful and prosperous peri-
od, but in light of the events since its
signing, Israel is definitely not at peace.
In fact, terrorism has increased and Is-
rael is more vulnerable. What went
wrong?
The premise of the Oslo Accords was
that Israel would trade
"land for peace." Israel
would withdraw from terri-
tory it held, and in return,
Mr. Arafat pledged to cease
waging war against Israel.
The problem right from the
beginning of the negotia-
tions was that Mr. Arafat
would talk peace to the Is-
raelis and continue preach-
ing violence to Arab
audiences. He refrained
from meeting any of the Ac-
A Jewish settler
and a Palestinian
man join in a
demonstration.