Outpouring of SentimentOutpouring of SentimentUS reaction to Yitzhak Rabin's assassination was extraordinary by any measure. The media and public officials treated the event with an outpouring of sentiment matched only by the death of an American president. The flag was lowered to half-mast at the White House and other public buildings, Congress devoted its official business to heroic eulogies and President Clinton was near tears when he publicly paid tribute to the slain Israeli leader as a warrior for peace and concluded by saying, in Hebrew and English, "goodbye friend".
Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, choked up and cried on TV in recalling his friendship. Even the usually stiff former Secretary of State James Baker was moved to say: "I loved this guy, I mean I really loved this guy." Some 3,000 people crowded into New York's Carnegie Hall where violinist Itzhak Perlman paid an impromptu musical tribute and the audience sang Hatikva.
Clinton led the largest US delegation in recent memory - 120 officials and friends, including former presidents Bush and Carter - to Rabin's funeral in Jerusalem. The event was widely portrayed as being as tragic as the assassination of President John Kennedy, a linkage Senator Edward Kennedy reinforced by scattering gravel from his brother's grave in Arlington on Rabin's in Jerusalem. New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, sent its own delegation, which included the state governor, the mayor and a large assembly of officials and the wealthy. Mark Green, a city official, said: "He's done more to show the world how to create peace than anyone in my lifetime." It was a theme repeated by many commentators. Abe Pollin, the owner of the Washington Bullets basketball team, returned from the funeral to announce that he was changing the team's name because Rabin had been killed by bullets and "the name Bullets for a sports team is no longer appropriate".
Not everyone mourned, however. Rabin had a number of bitter enemies in the significant segment of the American Jewish community opposed to peace, and some of them did not hesitate to applaud the assassination. Orthodox Jews set up a telephone hot line in New York to collect funds for the assassin, Yigal Amir. Moshe Gross, the director of the operation, said his group regarded Amir as a "great Jewish hero", adding: "We have watched all these Jews grieving over the killing of Rabin and we would like to surprise the world with the news that many Jews are glad." He said the hot line was getting as many as 70 calls an hour offering money and support for Amir.
In the end, surprisingly little attention was paid to Shimon Peres as Rabin's successor, or, for that matter, to Rabin's own lifelong fight in the enduring battle between Labour and Revisionist Zionism, dramatized by such incidents as the bloody 1948 Alkaline affair in which 14 ultra- nationalist Jews were killed while Rabin was deputy commander of the attacking force. The media focus, instead, shifted to Israel's current religious far right and its opposition to the peace process. The lingering image was an overwhelming sense that the US had lost its best foreign friend and as a result peace was left hanging in the balance.