A distant and hazy event

Meretz member believes that since Rabin's assassination the public consciousness has been engaged in a struggle between two world views: Israel living in peace with the Palestinian people and Israel as fanatical country and disconnected from its surroundings.

By ZAHAVA GALON
Zahav Golan 58 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Zahav Golan 58
(photo credit: Courtesy)
ON THE DAY THAT PRIME MINISTER YITZHAK RABIN was murdered 15 years ago, the rules of Israel’s democratic game changed and its society was torn even further apart.
Since then, the public consciousness has been engaged in a struggle between two world views: A view of Israel as enlightened, modern, secular, liberal and democratic, living in peace and partnership with the Palestinian people, contrasted with a view of Israel as fanatical and nationalistic, religious, fascist, racist, ethnocratic, and disconnected from its surroundings.
From the perspective of assassin Yigal Amir, the murder of the prime minster was perfectly executed and completely worthwhile.
After all, as Dahlia Rabin, daughter of the slain prime minister noted several weeks ago in a military commemoration ceremony, “[in the eyes of] today’s army recruits, the assassination is just a page in the history books.”
How did this happen? Over the years, the responsibility borne by the political system and rabbinical establishment has faded, dimmed, and been blurred. We have forgotten that Rabin was assassinated because of the political path he pursued – the Oslo Accords and a peace agreement with the Palestinians. And he was also assassinated because he was the first prime minister to sign a coalition agreement with local Arab parties.
We have forgotten that there were nationalist political elements, and fundamentalist, fanatical rabbis who believed that an elected government and sovereign Knesset that rested on Arab voters was illegitimate; therefore, they argued, Rabin lacked the mandate required to cede any part of the Land of Israel.
These same elements incited and inflamed the public, creating an atmosphere in which the prime minister and his policies were delegitimized. The relentless cries of “[Bring] the Oslo criminals to justice,” the rabbinical proclamations of din rodef that authorized the ‘pursued’ [the Israeli public] to eliminate the ‘pursuer’ [Rabin]; the infamous calls against Rabin sounded from the terrace in Jerusalem’s Zion Square – including the speech by today’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All these sowed the seeds for Rabin’s murder.
In his interrogation by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), assassin Amir acknowledged he would not have carried out the act without rabbinical sanction. To this day, Amir refuses to reveal which rabbis had, in effect, been full partners in the murder.
At the time, law enforcement agencies made no effort to track down the rabbis and bring them to justice. To this day, rabbis continue to inflame and issue halakhic rulings, behaving as a law unto themselves. Just recently, Rabbi Dov Lior from the settlement of Kiryat Arba expressed support for the tract “The King’s Torah” by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, which condones the murder of Arabs. Lior, not coincidentally, was among the principal inciters against Rabin.
It’s worth recalling that before the assassination, the incitement had already condoned the murder of Arabs. For example, the dishonorably named volume, “Baruch HaGever” by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, praises Baruch Goldstein for massacring 29 Arabs worshipers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994. Needless to mention, Ginsburg has never stood trial.
Israel’s continuing rule over three million Palestinians has created one set of laws for settlers, another for Palestinians. We erred in thinking that despite the undemocratic rule in the territories, we could keep the democratic game going within the Green Line.
Then, 15 years ago, only the fanatic, religious fringe sought to delegitimize Arab Knesset Members; today, the entire government embraces the policy.
This extremist fringe continues to grow. Years back, its members were concentrated in small ideological settlements east of the Green Line; today, they are legitimately elected parliamentarians who challenge Israel’s democracy. Two decades ago, the Knesset banned the representatives of Rabbi Meir Kahane; today, a declared Kahanist, Michael Ben-Ari, in wild inflammatory gestures, tramples on the principles underlying the Declaration of Independence that promises “equality irrespective of religion, race or gender.”
Instead of defending the state’s democratic character, racist Knesset Members impugn their political rivals and are trying to enact a slew of discriminatory laws, such as the “loyalty oath,” the naqba law, legislation that would abrogate citizenship, a law permitting Jewish communities to forbid Arabs to live among them, and more, all designed to discriminate against the country’s 20 percent Arab minority and portray Israeli-Arabs as an enemy of the state. Criticism from home and abroad, in particular, of settlement policy has led to a reflex to muzzle anything that runs against the illiberal local consensus, such as the onslaught against the New Israel Fund.
Netanyahu, in his Knesset speech marking the 15th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination, said he is a torch bearer of Rabin’s policy.
Liberally paraphrasing Rabin’s words, Netanyahu declared that Rabin has offered “less than a state for Palestinians”... and we [Netanyahu’s government] propose “a demilitarized state that recognizes Israel.” Really? In practice, the proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians are mired because of Netanyahu’s refusal to accept Obama’s request to extend the building moratorium for another two months. When the government continues to issue tenders for building contracts in East Jerusalem, and when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declares at the UN that it will be a few decades before peace between Israel and the Palestinians is attainable, it should come as no surprise that we find ourselves on the slippery slope to progressively less democracy.
Nor is it a surprise that the assassination is by now little more than a distant and hazy event.
The writer was a Meretz Member of Knesset.