The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords threw me back to the rhetoric that preceded the Rabin assassination.
It’s the fall of 1995, and there’s a sense in Israel that a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is imminent, and that Rabin is going to realize the Oslo accords signed just two years earlier. Rabin’s mandate is shaky – the Israeli populous, still reeling from the horrendous terrorist attacks of 1994, is skeptical as to Arafat’s sincerity in recognizing Israel.
The political and religious right, led by Bibi Netanyahu, launches a huge anti-Rabin campaign. Posters of Rabin in S.S. uniform and public statements by prominent rabbis that Rabin is a traitor and should be eliminated–basically a Jewish fatwa–pop up in newspapers, poster boards and demonstrations.
The culmination of the anti-Rabin campaign was the Likud rally in Zion Square, Jerusalem in October 1995, less than a month before the assassination. From the speakers’ balcony Netanyahu and the Likud leadership could easily hear the masses chanting “in blood and fire we shall do away with Rabin”, “he’s a traitor!” and “death to Rabin”. Many demonstrators carry signs depicting Rabin wearing a kafiah (eluding to Arafat) and in S.S. uniform.
Likud leaders, from the balcony, call for the ousting of the ‘Quisling’ government (after the WWII Norwegian traitor). Netanyahu claims that Rabin’s government is based on a non-Zionist majority – the five Arab MKs associated with the PLO.
Rabin counteracts with a pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv, at the very square that would eventually bear his name. Minutes after the last chord of ‘Song for Peace’, which ended the rally, Rabin is shot to death by Yigal Amir, a right-wing activist and follower of a rabbi that called for Rabin’s elimination.
In the aftermath of the assassination, the right’s mea culpa was drowned by the voices that called for understanding, bridging and healing. “Now is not the time to point fingers, we need to first dress the wounds”. But the time to assign blame never came. Within a few months Israel was mired in another round of fighting in Lebanon, and soon after Likud took the reins. The lessons were never learned, and the mere commemoration of Rabin became a political matter.
Now, I’m not saying that Sarah Palin called for the assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, or that she should be held liable in any way for the shooting in Tuscon. At most she is guilty of applying really bad judgement and using incendiary language (“Don’t retreat, instead reload!” she tweeted).
But the Tuscon shooting should serve as a warning that there are psychos out there that will take the rhetoric and even the imagery too literally. And maybe at the same time, reconsider the gun laws that enabled a known disturbed person to freely obtain a gun and buy ammo at Wal Mart.
