'No connection between Oslo and Peace.'
Photo: Reuters
Leftist march of folly
Op-ed: Annual Rabin commemoration shuns rightists who oppose both murder and Oslo
For the 15th time we’ve reached the waiting period between the Rabin memorial days (in line with the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars,) and it’s as though nothing has changed: Again we are seeing incitement against half the nation, which is pained by and rejects the murder yet justifiably continues to show reservations over Rabin’s political way.
The commemoration events got underway in a dignified manner with the official memorial day, and will hit their undignified peak in a protest (that is not an official government rally!) held by the Left (radical and otherwise) at the Rabin Square.
15 Years On
Matthew Gould
Op-ed: Rabin knew peace with Palestinians required for Israel's future, lasting security
Public opinion polls commissioned before the assassination predicted a Netanyahu victory over Rabin in the 1996 elections, an indication that the public started to understand that the “victims of peace” are not leading to peace, and that there is no connection between Oslo and peace; the predictable Oslo war only proved the righteousness of those who sounded the alarm starting in 1993.
Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand the ongoing decline in the number of participants in events held to mark a non-existent legacy. Rabin was not a man of letters and did not leave a moral mark. The “Rabin Legacy” slogan was invented in retrospect by “men of letters” and PR experts, in order to appropriate the man’s name and tragic death for the purpose of promoting his erroneous way.
The media continue to be enlisted to the cause of the Oslo march of folly, and continue to disparage and reprimand anyone who questions the false “legacy.”
One of the peaks was a film aired the other night by Channel 10, consisting of incitement against the pioneer-religious-settler community, which questions the official version of the assassination’s circumstances.
Yet one need not be religious or a settler in order to notice the contradictions and many mysteries associated with that terrible evening, and one need not be religious or a settler in order to understand that in order to disprove the stubborn rumors once and for all, the Shamgar Report as well as the x-rays that show Rabin’s gunshot wounds must be fully published.
As long as these trust-building measures are not taken, and as long as yet another official commission of inquiry is not appointed to look into the murder, the skepticism shall persist, as well as the incitement against those who do not toe the party line.
Murder didn’t kill democracy
I am neither religious nor a settler; rather, I am a secular Jew who since the Six-Day War had been living in the Ramat Aviv settlement, built on the ruins of Arab village Sheikh Munis. I am familiar with hundreds of secular rightists who hold doubts as to the official version of the assassination. Each one of my acquaintances also knows hundreds of skeptics, totaling tens of thousands of people on both sides of the “Green Line.”The repeated incitement against the religious-settler community merely boosts the skepticism among all those who are pained by the murder but attach great importance to knowing the truth.
In this context, it is important to contradict the prevalent, false declaration that the assassination curbed the Oslo “peace process” and brought Netanyahu to power in 1996. After all, public opinion polls on the eve of the murder predicted a Netanyahu victory in any case. The assassination’s political outcome was Shimon Peres’ rise to power and the decision to bring forward the 1996 elections in order to elicit electoral gains from the murder.
On the ground, the assassination’s outcome was the rash continuation of the failed process, and the opportunistic handover of Judea and Samaria towns to the Palestinian occupation army led by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. It was only the buses blown up by Hamas in the winter of 1996 that terminated Peres’ government.
In this context, it is also important to disprove the ridiculous declaration that the murderer’s bullets killed democracy as well. The murder deserves every condemnation, yet the damage to democracy had to do with the dubious political moves utilized by Rabin to secure the Oslo agreement’s approval, as well as the means used by Sharon in order to approve the ethnic, racist cleansing of Jews from homes in their own country, as the fascistic Left cheered on.
When it comes to Jews, the values of morality and human rights completely disappear. The kind of “peace” premised on this starting point is not peace, is not Jewish, is not democratic, is not moral, and is not Zionistic. As opposed to the fascistic Left, I believe that no one should be expelled from his home in his country, whether one is Jewish or Arab.
The Rabin assassination anniversary can be marked in a dignified manner if this is done in the context of the man and his entire life, yet not if this requires identification with the flawed political path he took towards the end of his life. As long as the memorial ceremony takes the form of a zealously impassioned leftist rally, there is no reason for those who disagreed with Rabin’s way to take part in it.
- Follow Ynetnews on Facebook
