BICOM

Thousand gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to commemorate the 23^rd anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s murder in 1995.

The memorial rally was organised by the grassroots movement Darkenu under the slogan of empowering the moderate majority against divisiveness and incitement. Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who was booed throughout his entire speech, told the crowd that Rabin’s death left Israelis “on the other side of the ideological divide [with] immense pain and sorrow”.

“We must always remember we are all brothers. That is the way to preserve our country together, the country Rabin fought for, and was murdered because he acted based on his beliefs — which I did not agree with, but it were his beliefs,” he said.

Labour Party chairman Avi Gabbay told the event in Tel Aviv: “We’re in a struggle for our country. From this square, which is drenched in the blood of Rabin, we will say loudly: We’ve grown tired of the politics of pitting brother against brother; we’ve grown tired of the ongoing intimidation; we’ve grown tired of the incitement against the police and the IDF chief, against the president, the media and the Supreme Court; we’ve grown tired of the search for someone to blame and marking traitors.”

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid also addressed the crowd and said Rabin’s murder “should have made us better people … that didn’t happen. We’re not better. The murder didn’t bring us closer together”. He added that incitement “is once again a tool; paranoia once again rules us. Rabin’s murder was not just murder; it was also a threat for the next murder. Because when the prime minister is murdered, it becomes an option”.

Lapid, who was also also booed, went on to say: “When a government says that anyone who thinks differently is a traitor and a collaborator with the enemy, it is leading us on a dangerous path, and it must stop. There are margins on the Right and the Left. We have an obligation to stand against them. But not everyone who thinks differently is an extremist and poses an existential threat; not everyone who thinks differently is the enemy. Not the entire right-wing murdered Rabin; not the entire left-wing is to blame for terror attacks and terrorism.”