BICOM

Official state ceremonies and activities in schools took place yesterday in Israel to mark the eighteenth anniversary of the assassination of former-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, one of the architects of the Oslo Peace Accords.

Rabin was murdered by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir in 1995 following a large peace rally in Tel Aviv. President Shimon Peres, who along with Rabin was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, spoke yesterday at a ceremony at Rabin’s graveside on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Peres praised Rabin’s “courage to seize the initiative and shape the path of history,” and reflected that “Yitzhak was murdered but the need to make historical decisions remains.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has thrown his weight behind the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said that Rabin, a former-IDF Chief of Staff and defence minister also taught that “Our strength is the guarantee for our existence and peace.” Speaking at a special Knesset session in memory of Rabin, Netanyahu said that Israel “requires a security border in the Jordan Valley, as Rabin said in his last speech,” in order to prevent “an Iranian offshoot” taking root in the West Bank, as it had when Israel withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza, through Hezbollah and Hamas respectively. Netanyahu added, “Rabin acted to insure the strength of the IDF to ensure our future.”

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein spoke about the need to guard against violence as a lesson from Rabin’s death, saying “We must explain again and again that violence is not a shortcut. We have to teach adults, youth and children that political violence is an injustice.” Meanwhile, leader of the opposition and Labour Party head Shelly Yachimovich reflected on the atmosphere of incitement against Rabin prior to his assassination, saying “We didn’t know then to what depths we would sink, how demonstrations, which a democracy must allow, became legitimization of murder.”