Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin

Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, took place on 4 November 1995 (12 Marcheshvan 5756 on the Hebrew calendar) at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The assailant was Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and ultranationalist who radically opposed prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Background

The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came immediately after an anti-violence rally in support of the Oslo peace process.[1]

Before the rally, Rabin was disparaged personally by right-wing conservatives and Likud leaders who perceived the peace process as an attempt to forfeit the occupied territories and a capitulation to Israel's enemies.[2][3]

National religious conservatives and Likud party leaders believed that withdrawing from any "Jewish" land was heresy.[4] The Likud leader and future prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Rabin's government of being "removed from Jewish tradition [...] and Jewish values".[2][3] Right-wing rabbis associated with the settlers' movement prohibited territorial concessions to the Palestinians and forbade soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces from evacuating Jewish settlers under the accords.[5][6] Some rabbis proclaimed din rodef, based on a traditional Jewish law of self-defense, against Rabin personally, arguing that the Oslo Accords would endanger Jewish lives.[5][7]

Rallies organized by Likud and other right-wing groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform, or in the crosshairs of a gun.[2][3] Protesters compared the Labor party to the Nazis and Rabin to Adolf Hitler[5] and chanted, "Rabin is a murderer" and "Rabin is a traitor".[8][9] In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin".[10][11] The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do.[8][12] Netanyahu denied any intention to incite violence.[2][3][13]

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The assassination has been described as emblematic of a kulturkampf ("cultural struggle&quot between religious right-wing and secular left-wing forces within Israel.[5][4][56] Ilan Peleg of the Middle East Institute has described Rabin's assassination as "reflecting a deep cultural divide within Israel's body politic [...] intimately connected with the peace process"[57] which illustrates both increased polarization and political conflict in the country.[58]

On 28 March 1996, the Shamgar Commission issued its final report into the assassination. It was critical of Shin Bet for putting the Prime Minister at risk and ignoring threats to his life from Jewish extremists.[59]

Due to the ultimate failure of further progress on the Oslo Accords, there is a popular view that the assassination was highly successful, with some calling it the most successful political assassination in modern history due to it achieving the goals of its perpetrator.[60]

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin