BICOM

An estimated thirty five thousand people attended a rally on Saturday night to mark the eighteenth anniversary of the assassination of Israel’s 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. Saturday’s event which was held at the same Tel Aviv square, in which Rabin was killed, drew a large number of participants from youth groups and movements from across the religious and political spectrum. Many of the participants on Saturday night had not been born when Rabin’s assassination took place.

The rally was titled “Remembering the murder, fighting for democracy” and featured a number of speakers including Yair Tzaban, the Minister of Immigrant Absorption in Rabin’s last government, who called for the preservation of Israeli democracy and Hadassah Froman, the wife of the late rabbi and outspoken peace activist Menachem Froman who lived in a West Bank settlement.

Rabin’s grandson, Yonatan Ben-Artzi also took to the stage and called on Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was leader of the opposition at the time of Rabin’s death, to bring peace to Israel. Referring to the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Ben-Artzi said “For the first time in years, a special opportunity has been put in your [Netanyahu’s] path, to take advantage of a unique situation in order to bring peace.” He continued, “This will not be easy, and certainly will not always popular. But history shows that leaders’ [merits] are tested in unpopular times. I believe this is your time.”

Later this week, the Knesset will mark the anniversary of Rabin’s death with a special plenum meeting, which will be attended by President Shimon Peres, who along with Rabin was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.