On this, the eleventh anniversary of the assassination of Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Olmert has reassured the Israeli public (or at least 70 percent of it) that Yigal Amir will never be pardoned for that crime. The other 30 percent, those who think Amir ought to go free at some point, are out of luck, it seems. Unless, of course, Olmert is wrong. Which has been known to happen.
Where are these people coming from? How can almost a third of Israel's population believe that Rabin's killer should walk? And why are so many of these deluded people found on the religious right? It's complicated, of course, but not very. The simple answer would be to say that some on the religious right still believe Rabin was a "traitor" who deserved to die and that Amir was a hero. Well, no doubt there are some who feel that way, and I have no excuses for them. There are others, though, who subscribe to this conspiracy theory and believe that Amir didn't actually murder Rabin at all. I have no excuses for them, either, because even assuming they're correct, the fact is that Amir went to that rally intending to murder Rabin, he pulled out a gun and shot bullets in Rabin's direction, and Rabin died. That's all on tape. So even if he was a patsy, he was still a key player.
Amir's little brother, Amitai, has this perspective on Rabin's assassination:
"If you analyze the fallout, the fallout is ultimately positive," Amitai said. "From the perspective of the agreements, the return of territory was delayed for 10 years. The settlers tripled their numbers. Arafat died in the meantime. Now you canעt give everything back. The settlers have changed. They can fight."
It's utter hogwash. As has been pointed out over and over again, Rabin was, if anything, becoming increasingly skeptical of Oslo at the time he was murdered. His death did nothing to delay the "return of territory" ("return" to whom? it's pathetic that even the right wing lunatic fringe have adopted this language). But what can you expect? This kid has spent the last eleven years listening to his mother.
On the other side of this sorry story, we once again have to listen to the laments of the left about how peace would have broken out all over the Middle East had Rabin survived. More hogwash, as again discussed here and here.
We continue to mourn the loss of one of Israel's great leaders, for who he actually was and what he actually did. It was more than enough to deserve our eternal honor and respect.
