The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a religious extremist has put Israel’s political right wing on the defensive.
Still shocked by the murder, the right is also reeling from accusations, lodged by Rabin’s widow, Leah, and others, that opposition leaders fueled the fires of incitement.
In the days after the killing, Rabin’s widow and Labor Knesset members have blasted the right, asserting that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the opposition did nothing to curb anti-Rabin rhetoric during stormy Knesset sessions and at public demonstrations.
From the right’s perspective, the arrest of several young religious extremists in connection with the murder has made a bad situation even worse.
“It was bad enough when we thought Yigal Amir was a lone fanatic,” a Likud supporter attending Sunday’s massive memorial rally in Tel Aviv for the slain prime minister said, referring to Rabin’s confessed assassin.
But “hearing that the assassination might have been masterminded by a Jewish underground and sanctioned by rabbis is almost too much to bear.”
Possible rabbinic sanction for the assassination was highlighted when reports surfaced that Israeli police would question two rabbis about whether they approved the assassination.
Both rabbis, Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitz of Ma’aleh Adumim and Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, strongly denied the allegations.
“They do not have the least shred of truth,” Rabinovitz told Israel Radio. Rabinovitz, who openly opposes the peace accords with the Palestinians, was one of a group of some 20 rabbis who issued a ruling in July calling Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate army bases in the West Bank.
Israel’s chief rabbinate is also look into the matter, after being provided a list – but Yoel Bin-Nun of the West Bank settlement of Ofra – of rabbis who had called for Rabin’s death.
Although no rabbis have been arrested, the very thought that rabbinical leaders might have sanctioned the murder spurred several angry newspaper editorials.
The Hebrew daily Davar Rishon wrote, “If anyone need to rend his clothes over the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, it is – first and foremost – the national-religious public, including its rabbis and leaders.”
Ma’ariv agreed: “The actual responsibility for the awful deed lies with the spiritual leaders who incited to murder and gave their approval for murder.”
From the right’s perspective, the fact that most right-wing and religious leaders have denounced the murder has not prevented a backlash, according to Yehudit Tayar, spokeswoman for the Yesha Council, which represents settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“People here are pretty shaken up. Our office has received several threatening phone calls, and we’re starting to hear reports of discrimination.”
“There is a real witch hunt going on,” said Ruth Matar, co-founder of Women in Green, a group that opposes territorial compromise.
Describing an incident on a television show involving her daughter-in-law Nadia, the organization’s co-founder, Matar said, “When Nadia was interviewed on `Good Morning Israel’ following the assassination, the interviewer said, `You’ve been awfully quiet this week.’
“The implication was, `Don’t you feel guilty about the assassination?”
Although Ruth Matar called the assassination “a tragedy for the Jewish people,” she placed much of the blame for the strained relations that existed between the government and the right-wing squarely on Yitzhak Rabin’s shoulders.
The Rabin government “has been the most inciteful in the history of the state. It has likened the Likud to Hamas.
“Unfortunately, the climate here has been one where the majority of people feel disenfranchised, as if they have no input into government policy.”
Shmuel Sackett, co-chairman of Zo Artzeinu, another organization opposed to giving land to the Palestinians that has organized nationwide protests, agreed.
The assassination never would have happened, he said, “if the prime minister would have listened more to the right wing and given us the feeling that, at the very least, we were being listened to.
“Only out of sheer frustration does someone like Yigal Amir do what he’s been accused of doing.”
Frustrated or not, right-wing leaders appear united in their efforts to heal the rift between them and other segments of Israeli society.
“The Yesha Council held a meeting and decided to abstain from any public activities during the 30-day mourning period,” Tayar said.
“Although we disagreed politically, Yitzhak Rabin was our prime minister. We’re also in mourning. We remember him as the chief of staff during the Six-Day War.”
As to future demonstrations, she said, “We have always been careful about what we said, never called Rabin a traitor, but if you have a demonstration with 100,000 people, it’s impossible to control every individual.”
That being said, Tayar added, “I would hope that people will be more sober- minded and tone down their rhetoric. In an electrified atmosphere, someone who is unbalanced could react in a violent way.”
This view is a shared by Sholmo Riskin, chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
Riskin was indicted by many this week, along with Nadia Matar and others, for his role in occupying a hillside near Efrat during a series of settler protests against the expansion of Palestinian self-rule.
Amir, Rabin’s confessed assassin, was involved in at least one of those demonstrations, some of which turned into ugly clashes with Israeli soldiers.
“Most of us never dreamt to what extent vitriolic debate can lead to bloodshed,” Riskin said in an interview.
In the aftermath of the killing, Riskin is calling for greater tolerance among Israelis.
“Forget about Greater Israel; it is not really a reality anymore. Forget about dismantling all the settlements, because it will cause terrible alienation on the part of 50 percent of the country.
“Somehow we must reach some kind of middle ground in which we give up parts of Judea and Samaria, and keep other parts of Judea and Samaria,” the New York- born rabbi said. “This is the only way to achieve a wide consensus without compromising the principles of the government in power.”
Although reluctant to point any fingers, Riskin clearly sees a need for religious Jews in general – and the religious school system in particular – to engage in reconciliation, not recrimination.
“We need to be involved in more bridge-building and fewer demonstrations,” he said.
“As educators in the national religious camp, we must tone down everything we say about the cardinal importance of the Land of Israel, and instead stress the cardinal importance of the people of Israel.
“It must be made clear that the most valued thing in Jewish law is not even the Western Wall, but a human life,” he said.
Whether Israel’s right wing can overcome negative associations with the assassination remains to be seen, according to Hebrew University Professor Ehud Sprinzak, an expert on Jewish fundamentalism. “The right’s future depends on whether or not they will recognize that they had a direct or indirect part in the creation of the conditions that led to the assassination,” said Sprinzak, author of “The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right.”
The first step for their rehabilitation, he said, “is to change the rhetoric. The second is to act forcefully against those marginal elements that are still talking about `Peres the traitor’ and the `treacherous government.'”
“If the Israeli right can do that,” he said. “It can become what it always should have been: a respectable and constructive opposition.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
