Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin plans to slam “price tag” vandalism, calling it
“Jewish terrorism,” during a special Knesset session in memory of former prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin on Wednesday.
Rivlin released on Tuesday his
speech for the upcoming memorial session, during which Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch and
opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) are scheduled to speak.
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“Rabin’s
assassination carries two messages on democracy: We must have zero tolerance for
political violence, and at the same time, we must avoid demonization of
political groups and minorities,” Rivlin wrote. “We must avoid gross and
negligent generalizations, as those who opposed Oslo faced after the
murder.”
The Knesset Speaker will call on MKs to remember that “in the
days following the assassination, legitimate democratic discourse was silenced
in Israel,” and that “kippa-wearers, pioneering settlers and those on the right
[became known as] enemies of peace, instigators and partners to
murder.”
“The phenomenon known as ‘price tag’ is perhaps the clearest
test of our ability to implement these lessons,” wrote Rivlin. “First of all,
this is not a ‘price’ or a ‘tag,’ this is terror,” he wrote. “These villainous
criminals, who harmed houses of prayer, fields, homes and property belonging to
Palestinians, are Jewish, and this is ‘Jewish terrorism,’ that should be called
nothing else.
“‘Price-tag’ acts are the biggest threat [to] the Zionist
vision – greater than Arab terror, or even the Iranian threat.
At the
same time, we must remember, especially on this day, that not only cheapening
the blood of Arabs is dangerous, but so is cheapening the blood of Jewish people
due to negligent generalizations,” Rivlin’s speech continues.
According
to Rivlin, haredim face the same demonization, in which “harmful marginal
groups” are portrayed as the norm.
“This does not strengthen democracy,
does not strengthen Israeli society and does not prevent the threat of violence
– it does the opposite,” his speech reads.