Israel Bids a Friend Good-ByeIsrael Bids a Friend Good-ByeReprinted from Middle East International, No.513, 17 November 1996
With their notorious want of inhibition, Israelis frequently give way to shared public sorrow; but never within living memory has the country been engulfed with grief and anguish comparable with the flood-tide released by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on 4 November. Even the 1973 Yom Kippur war, in which Israel suffered thousands of casualties and the imminent threat of defeat in battle, did not inspire an air of torment and misery comparable with the days that followed the killing.
Uppermost was the sense of shock that "a Jew has killed a Jew". History attributes the downfall of Jewish sovereignty in the first and second centuries to internal strife and factional wars; that tradition has generated a strict interdiction, albeit unwritten, on political violence amongst Jews. In truth, the taboo is something of a myth, as illustrated by the hand-grenade that killed a Peace Now demonstrator in 1983. Non-lethal violence - without exception exercised by right-wing thugs - has long made Israel's streets a perilous place for left-wingers, who face abuse and beatings if they dare stage public demonstrations .
All the same, it was the first instance in decades of the assassination of a public figure - and a popular one at that. Recent months found Rabin subjected to incessant harassment by small but noisy gangs of far right zealots who did not hesitate to depict the"traitor" in SS uniform. These manifest- ations of relentless hostility obscured the fact that, having occupied the center stage for three decades as war hero and scrupulously honest politician, Rabin was widely respected. After the assassination, that regard erupted into a belated 'festival of love", fueled by a sense of collective guilt among the silent majority who had confined their sympathies with Rabin's peace policy to the safety of their own homes while abandoning the streets to hard-line fanatics.
Guilt also cast a shadow over the domestic security service, whose awesome reputation was marred by a dual lapse. Rabin's Shin Bet bodyguards were caught napping, failing to notice the assassin as he got to point-blank range. Worse, indifferent to repeated warnings from the left that new right-wing plots were being hatched, Shin Bet heads failed to subject Zionist die-hards to the ruthlessly efficient counter- intelligence techniques applied to smash Palestinian resistance.
Although assassin Yigal Amir was far from discreet, and numerous people were privy to his death threats against the prime minister, Shin Bet had no inkling of the terrorist plot in train. While some Shin Bet field operatives are right-wing sym- pathisers, the oversight does not appear to have been deliberate - but the service chiefs are accused of complacency, and an initial shake-up has seen the dismissal or suspension of four senior officers.
The crack-down seems to have spurred the Shin Bet to more vigorous measures against the lunatic fringes, and eight members of an alleged far-right under- ground group were subsequently arrested. But the assassination could have a less welcome effect on civil rights . Seizing their chance, some government leaders who share responsibility for past inaction - notably Police Minister Moshe Shahal and Interior Minister Ehud Barak - plan new legislation and administrative measures which, under a smoke-screen of "smashing right-wing extremism" (Barak) could gravely prejudice political liberties and freedom of speech.
Local perceptions of the tragedy were reinforced by the unprecedented gathering of world leaders at Rabin's funeral. The monarchs and presidents assembled at his graveside signaled the world community's striking endorsement of the peace process, with equally striking proof that the pursuit of peace guarantees Israel an international stature immeasurably greater than the state's physical size.
Paradoxically, it was the most prominent of the foreign eulogists whose exercise in basic Hebrew gave Rabin's mourners the phrase that became their battle-cry. The change had its visual impact on Israel's road, hitherto dominated by bumper-stickers flaunting opposition to the peace process and hostility to Rabin. Immediately after his killing, contrite right-wingers, ashamed of having contributed to the lynch atmosphere, hastened to remove the offending stickers; in their place, thousands of peace supporters, formerly too timid to display their sympathies, now plucked up the courage to adorn their cars with Bill Clinton's "Shalom, haver" ("goodbye, friend").
But while the backlash has such a dramatic effect in the short run, only the future will show whether the trauma of Rabin's killing has a lasting impact. Politicians pledge to curb the violent rhetoric widely blamed for making the assassination possible. Leaders of the right-wing mainstream, dismayed at allegations over their failure to dissociate themselves from the hard-line fanatics who regularly dominate nationalist rallies, are going all out to prove their innocence. Stung by the direct accusation by Rabin's widow, who singled him out as morally responsible for the assassination, Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu has proclaimed that he wants nothing to do with the hard-liners and would forfeit the post of prime minister rather than win it with their support.
Netanyahu's belated renunciation of the hard-liners may prove meaningless as public revulsion erodes his backing . Recent months found him neck-and-neck with Rabin, but a poll taken in the immediate wake of the assassination set the Likud leader's support at a mere 20 percent as against 54 percent for Rabin's successor Shimon Peres (see p. 5). But Peres lacks the solid popular regard Rabin enjoyed, and as right-wingers shake off their unfamiliar defensive pose in the months to come, the equilibrium will probably be restored by the elections scheduled for November 1996. Much will depend on the Labor constituency, and the thousands who vowed on Rabin's grave that they would be silent no more.
But the post-assassination period has already witnessed two striking events. Among the stream of visitors who came to Rabin's north Tel Aviv home to console his family was Yasir Arafat. Under different circumstances, Arafat's visit to Tel Aviv would have raised the political temperature to white hot; as it happened, scarcely a murmur of objection was heard.
On 11 November, a quarter of a million attended a rally in Rabin's memory in the square where he was gunned down. Israel's leading artists sang in memory of the prime minister, culminating in a tearful rendering of the peace hymn that was on his lips just before he was shot. At that precise hour, the last lDF units pulled out of Jenin, leaving the town under the full control of the Palestinian police. The withdrawal went through smoothly, without any protest from the settlers or their hard-line allies.