Rabin remembered, 13 years later

Barak: Bad seeds have grown into tumors; Livni: I didn't vote for him, but he was my PM too.

By SHELLY PAZ
Peres Rabin memorial 224 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
Peres Rabin memorial 224
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
The nation's leaders took the opportunity at last night's memorial rally in Tel Aviv for prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to call for national unity and a less violent society. "I didn't vote for Rabin but he was my prime minister, too," Kadima leader Tzipi Livni told the crowd at the 13th annual rally. Livni and the other speakers called for the nation to come together. "There are no more unifying words than the words that were displayed here 13 years ago; 'yes to peace and no to violence.' " Livni told a crowd estimated by organizers at over 100,000 Saturday night that she wanted to speak about the "other Israel," the Israel of all of those who were present in the square and of all of those who were not. "We paid a heavy price for past hatreds, but I came here today to say that I believe that we can do things differently, and we must make [Israel] a place where no political dispute ends in violence and shooting," Livni said. She said she envisioned an Israel where all children, secular, Orthodox and Arabs, received the same educational tools, and a democratic and Jewish state where no dispute led to violence against IDF soldiers and the representatives of the state. President Shimon Peres delivered a similar message. "We are facing a crisis. There is no point in trying to hide it. The disputes between us have worsened and they damage the wondrous human fabric that is called the State of Israel," Peres said. "People ask themselves how they can personally benefit from things rather than asking themselves what all of us can gain from them? Instead of lending a hand, they pull their hand back. If we won't pull ourselves together, shake hands and make the effort, our future will be difficult," he said. Peres said he did not come to deliver a warning but rather a request. "I ask to also see next year here in Kikar Rabin the part of the nation that doesn't see itself a part and a partner in this memory - an entire sector that didn't pull the trigger, a sector that wants to be part of this national day, so that an entire nation will condemn the violence," he said. Labor chairman Ehud Barak spoke about the threats to the nation's security. "Thirteen years have passed and still violence endangers us all. Iran plots and threatens to be armed with nuclear weapon, Hizbullah dragged us into a war two years ago and Hamas, yes Hamas, controls the Gaza Strip," the defense minister said. Barak addressed Rabin. "Yitzhak, there is one soldier whom you didn't meet. He was just a school student when you were murdered, and he has been abducted and has been held captive by Hamas for nearly 900 days," Barak said. Violence has eroded Israeli's democracy, he went on. "We used to call them bad seeds, but now they are tumors with secondary growths. This is no longer a warning sign, it's a threat to democracy, the IDF, the police and on all the authorities of a normal society. I promise you we will uproot this evil from within us," Barak added. Former deputy defense minister Dalia Rabin, the late prime minister's daughter, thanked the crowd for coming. "We all came here to tell you, father, clearly and loudly, that we guard your spark and we will never stop doing it," she said. "One hundred forty years after the American nation murdered in cold blood its president, Abraham Lincoln, for his attempts to eliminate slavery and discrimination against the blacks, the greatest democracy in the world has elected a young Afro-American, brilliant and educated, to be its 44th president. We don't have 140 years," Rabin said. She called on the people of Israel to show responsibility and to vote in the national election on February 10 for "a leadership that will uproot the hatred and will be wise enough to give hope and prosperity to the silent majority." Earlier, Teamsters Union President James P. Hoffa, who supported the campaign of US President-elect Barack Obama also spoke. Hoffa told Dalia Rabin that he, too, knew the pain of losing a father. He said he learned to love Israel from his father, Jimmy Hoffa, the union's most famous leader. "To be a Hoffa is to love Israel," he said. He closed his remarks by trying to get the crowd to chant Obama's slogan, "Yes, we can!" but the Israelis refrained from joining in.