Posted on 11/02/2003 2:39:10 AM PST by IsraelBeach
PLEASE SIGN THE CONDOLENCE BOOK: http://www.otn.com/netking/ Nov. 2, 2003 200,000 Remember Rabin By MATTHEW GUTMAN
An estimated 100,000 people packed Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to pay homage to slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, gathering at the spot where he was gunned down eight years ago to show support for the peace process he helped launch.
Security was tight for the event, with some 1,500 police and soldiers manning barricades.
Security guards combed the crowds, following several acts of vandalism at the site, including Rabin's memorial itself.
Speakers delivered their speeches behind thick panes of bulletproof glass.
Though ostensibly a memorial service, the rally had deep political undertones and was hailed as something of a comeback for the dormant center-left.
Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, the rival-turned-supporter of Rabin, hammered away at the government.
"We are forgetting the Jewish majority in our land – but future demography will do what state policy refuses to do," Peres said, warning that Israel will lose itself in an Arab majority unless it withdraws from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He called for the immediate evacuation of the Gaza Strip, calling into question what Israel gains from the settlements there.
Peres also wondered aloud why the government has pinned its existence "on one leg, the leg of security."
"Yitzhak was right, and his path just," he said. "His views today are clear and enduring. There will be no retreat; we will continue."
Likud MK Gilad Erdan said it was a "shame and disgrace" that Peres used the memorial ceremony for Rabin to upgrade his own position as leader of the opposition, attacking the government with incitement against the right wing instead of calling for unity to respect Rabin's memory. "Who does Peres mean when he's talking about murderers?" Erdan asked. "This speech proves again that Labor is no alternative and has no proper leadership."
Backstage, former prime minister Ehud Barak told YNET that the problem is not with the Oslo peace process, "but with the spread of the settlements in Palestinian territory."
An emotional Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, Rabin's daughter and a former deputy defense minister, focused her speech on the hatred wracking the state – which, she said, was responsible for the murder of her father by Yigal Amir, and which brought vandals to Tel Aviv on Friday to deface his memorial.
"This wicked cycle must be stopped," she said. "Its poisonous roots, which proved their power eight years ago, and again 24 hours ago, must be ripped up."
Rabin-Pelosoff added that "it is time to make peace." Without it, she said, "all the accomplishments of the State of Israel will crumble and be lost." Only dialogue and compromise can win this war, she concluded.
Between speeches, star musicians serenaded the crowd with songs associated with the peace movement.
The crowd was much larger than the group on hand for last year's rally, and brought something of a boon to Labor. Backstage, MK Ephraim Sneh told The Jerusalem Post that his party is working on a major peace plan "along the lines that a majority of Israelis can support," adding, "The current situation is intolerable, and there is an alternative."
The political undertones did not cheer everyone who crammed the square. Ron and Talia Lapan, for example, said they had come only to identify with Rabin, but not necessarily his politics.
They had hoped that the rally would be more about unifying the people around Rabin's tragic murder, they said, rather than about making a political stand.
On Friday, vandals – taking advantage of the poor security near Rabin's memorial just behind Kikar Rabin – spray-painted a large silver swastika on the memorial, and defaced a large portrait of Rabin with the slogan: "Kahane was right." A similar slogan, referring to the policies of the slain far-right politician Meir Kahane, was painted near Amir's Herzliya home.
The New York-born Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League, and then founded the Kach Movement after making aliya. The Knesset banned the Kach faction, and the Kahane Chai faction that followed it, as racist. Some of the groups' followers were accused of stirring up incitement against Rabin before his assassination.
Members of a Labor youth movement camped out overnight Friday to prevent a recurrence of the vandalism. Much of the damage was repaired by the time of the rally.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Rabin-Pelosoff over the weekend to express his disgust at the defacement. "Everything should be done to find those responsible, and to uproot such phenomena," he said.
Others, including President Moshe Katsav, joined in condemning the vandalism, calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. But Tel Aviv police noted Saturday night that apprehending the vandals will not be easy.
On Thursday, a Channel 2 film crew filmed a man in his 20s stopping at Rabin's memorial, gazing into the black stones, and spitting three times before looking back at the cameras and storming off.
As Rabin-Pelosoff spoke on Saturday night, dozens lined up to catch a glimpse of her father's memorial. Just five meters away, a glassed-off section of graffiti – kept as a memorial to the intense feelings of confusion and remorse that followed the murder – read in large block letters, "We are SORRY." Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
The villain of epic proportions is Yitzhak Rabin, who may not have been the architect of the Oslo accords, but made them acceptable to an Israeli public which would, but for their faith in him, initially have rejected out of hand the notion of an accord with Yasser Arafat. Israel's Prime Minister is also a de facto commander-in-chief. Rabin was doubly so, since he was also a respected general, chief of staff at the time of Israel's greatest victory in 1967. His greatest villainy was in persuading Israel that the only road ahead was surrender and abrogation of its legitimate historical and strategic rights, when, in fact, the nation's strength and international prestige were at an all time high.
After the Gulf War and the defeat of Bush-Baker, Israel enjoyed a period of unparalleled opportunities. The Soviet Union had crumbled and could no longer arm and encourage its Arab clients. The PLO, which had backed Saddam Hussein, was discredited and defeated. The Arab uprising known as the "intifada" had subsided, and the nation was in the midst of economic resurgence. Instead of rallying citizens with an inspiring view of the future, Rabin persuaded Israelis that they had lost the initiative and the only road was surrender and withdrawal. He restored Arafat's prestige and even elevated him from international criminal to "statesman." He perverted the real meaning of "peace" by defining it as surrender and withdrawal, weakened his own nation and encouraged the murderous designs of its enemies. One must struggle with history books to find another example of a commander-in-chief who reverses hard won victories by surrendering all gains and persuades his troops that their sacrifice and valor were in vain and that the enemies' cause is as valid as their own.
In addition, …it was Rabin who displayed a palpable loathing and indifference to Israel's patriotic citizens of Judea and Samaria, painting them as enemies of peace, telling them they were welcome to "spin like propellers in the wind." It was Rabin who then released and armed thousands of terrorists who wreaked carnage and havoc in Israel. He derided the victims of this terror by calling them "casualties of peace" even as he consorted with their killers.
It was Rabin who hypnotized a population tired of war with the chimera of peace....[L]et us not forget, the man now treated as a martyr and pseudo-saint was the wrong man for Jewish history and destiny. It is Rabin who will go down in history as the great betrayer of his people.
With all due respect, though, had Rabin lived he would have recognized that the "peace process" was a failure and pulled out of it. By assassinating him, his failed policy has been enshrined as some kind of sacred doctrine that can never be changed or repealed.
Israel still hasn't learned this lesson which is why 'life' (such as it is) in Israel will worsen.
Israel digs its own grave, afraid to finish it, afraid to climb out.
Such psychopathology the world has never seen.
The mindless, secular, socialist left in Israel does their best to destroy Israel; and they are doing a fine job.
Rabin was a traitor.
May the other filthy traitors Peres, Beilin, and Barak follow him soon. May their names be erased.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.