|
|
Previous Issues
Middle East Timeline MewNews
MidEast Links
MidEastWebdialog
Books
PeaceWatch Volume 4 #13
October 25 2002
Seven Years Since the Rabin Assassination:
The Fruits of Yigal Amir's "Victory"
Seven years after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, we need to ask ourselves if Yigal Amir, his
assassin, is gaining his objective after all. The conventional wisdom, or perhaps the conventional wishful thinking, is
that in a democracy an assassin's bullet cannot and should not change history. The conventional wisdom is that one
person cannot change history. Rabin, however, was not an ordinary person, but rather the embodiment of a symbol.
Rabin, like all great leaders, was part myth, and there is no denying that his assassination created more myths.
However, in virtue of his capacities both as a man and a myth, Rabin was able to do things that ordinary leaders could
not do.
Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak are ordinary leaders. They could not unite the Israel Labor party behind a drive to make the
Palestinian Authority fulfill its Oslo treaty obligations and suppress terror. Benjamin Nethanyahu was a
very ordinary leader. He could not have gotten the support of the US to force the Palestinian to fulfill their Oslo and
Wye treaty obligations, though he wanted to. He didn't even try really. Peres and Benjamin Ben Eliezer and Ehud Barak
are ordinary leaders. They cannot, and could not withstand the pressure of the settler lobby to build more and more
settlements, and to plant illegal outposts in impossible places.
The
peace initiative undertaken by Yitzhak Rabin was based on his correct understanding of three facts, and on Rabin's
unique ability to communicate those facts to the Israeli public. The first fact is that
Israel cannot rule over millions of Palestinians
who are unwilling to accept Israeli sovereignty. The second fact is that the world, and especially the United States,
will not allow Israel to continue the occupation indefinitely, especially after the United States had invaded Iraq for
its unlawful occupation of Kuwait. The third fact is that regardless of foreign policy, the settlement adventure is
warping Israeli society, and transforming Zionism from a progressive movement of national rebirth into the standard
bearer of reactionary religious zealotry.
On
the anniversary of Rabin's assassination, celebrated today (October 16-17) according to the Hebrew calendar, there are
those in Israel who are
insisting that basically, Yigal Amir was right. The Oslo accords are a failure. The "Al-Aqsa Intifada" has wiped out the
hope of peace according to them.
The
Intifada, as well as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the suicide bombings and provocative actions of the
Palestinian leadership during the
Oslo years certainly prolonged the occupation. The hairsbreadth victory of Benjamin
Nethanyahu in 1996, came just a few months after the nation, in shock from Rabin's assassination, had vowed to continue
his heritage. Nethanyahu's victory was gained with the aid of Chairman Yasser Arafat's speeches, which were shown over
and over again in Likud election propaganda. The terror attacks of September 11 likewise gave the aggressive policies of
Ariel Sharon new life and legitimacy, for he could say "we are fighting terror" with a degree of truth.
The
lifetime of the occupation and the settlements has been artificially prolonged, but they are still doomed. What was true
in 1992, is still true today. We cannot rule over three million Palestinians indefinitely. Soon they will be four
million, and then perhaps six million, and will outnumber Jews in the land between the
Jordan river and the sea.
Meanwhile, the hold that the settlers and their supporters have on Israeli society has grown ever tighter. Defense
Minister Ben-Eliezer meets great opposition in attempting to dismantle even the least of the illegal outposts set up by
the settlers. The unthinkable and unmentionable has become respectable. Advocates of wishful-thinking-based transfer
solutions insist that it is possible to keep the land without the Palestinians. There is no longer any meaningful and
organized opposition to the settlers. "Peace" initiatives are confined to a tiny minority of anti-Zionist and moralistic
faithful who have little support among the Israeli public, Jewish or Arab. The
Israel labor party, having dethroned Shimon Peres,
lacks a leader of stature that can explain the need for dismantling the settlements to a public that has become, at
best, apathetic to prospects for peace, as well as to the ruination of the economy.
The
United States is apparently poised for a second attack on Iraq, and after settling accounts with Iraq, there is no
doubt that the US will pressure Israel to agree to formation of a Palestinian state and to enter into peace negotiations
based on the Saudi initiative, which is shelved, but not dead. The
United States, the European Union and the United
Nations are all publicly committed to Israeli withdrawal and to Palestinian statehood. Israel will not be able to count
forever on bad Palestinian leadership and Islamic radicalism to allow prolongation of the occupation.
Israeli society and the Israeli government are not ready for this eventuality. Like the government, we have simply
decided to blame everything on Yasser Arafat, and to put our faith in irrational or impossible solutions such as
conducting sieges of the Muqata compound or hoping for transfer. The elimination of Arafat's leadership and the
elimination of Saddam Hussein have become, to Israeli society, what the Messiah was to religious Jews. Somehow, if
Arafat and Hussein are gone, the Israeli government and public are convinced that the Palestinians will agree to allow
perpetuation of the occupation by a different name. However, in reality, the end of the Iraqi crisis and real
Palestinian reform will bring on the day of reckoning.
Israel will be forced to withdraw from the settlements and to negotiate peace
with the Palestinians. A society that has staked everything it has on the settlement fiasco will be left with nothing.
Not only the money, but also the indoctrination invested in "Judea and Samaria" and in Gaza will all vanish. What will a
generation that has been raised on religious and nationalist zealotry use for ideology in place of the settlements? The
danger to Israeli society is the real damage caused by the assassination of Yitshak Rabin, and that damage may be a
fatal wound to Zionism. This is the meaning of Yigal Amir's victory.
Ami Isseroff
Rehovot, Israel
Related Articles:
|
| |
Help Us Spread the Word
PLEASE LINK TO US AND CIRCULATE PEACEWATCH/MIDEASTWEB BY EMAIL
Be sure to give credit to PeaceWatch
http://www.ariga.com/peacewatch and MidEastWeb - http://www.mideastweb.org
e-mail
subscription to PeaceWatch - MidEastWeb
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by the author, by
MidEastWeb for Coexistence and by the PEACE group. May be reproduced intact by e-mail only provided that credit is given
to the authors, and to MideastWeb for Coexistence RA and the PEACE group, including addresses listed at the bottom.
You may not copy any material on this Web Site to your Web site, or reproduce it any form except e-mail without
permission.
MewNews carries
updated news both on the Web and by
e-mail subscription
Please send comments, problems, broken links etc. to
Opinions in PeaceWatch are those of the authors and do not represent PEACE or MidEastWeb policy.
PeaceWatch - other articles
Subscribe to the MEW e-dialog list
News at
MewNews |
what's on
PeaceWatch