On anniversary of Rabin’s murder, Rivlin warns of ‘violent’ political climate

State memorial events are being held to commemorate the Hebrew-calendar anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin 24 years ago, with President Reuven Rivlin warning that the current political discourse was getting too similar to the climate that preceded the murder.

“The days before Rabin’s murder were days of intense and legitimate public debate, that descended in some cases to criminal incitement and defamation that motivated the murderer to try and assassinate Israeli democracy,” Rivlin says at an event at his official residence.

“Can a political murder happen today as well? I don’t know,” the president adds. “The political culture from left and right is full of alienation, with rifts replacing discussion and debate. Political discourse can’t be done with violence.”

Dalia Rabin, the former leader’s daughter, decries a professor’s recent claim that Yigal Amir wasn’t the real murderer, highlighting a phenomenon in which many Israelis don’t believe that the actual culprit was the Jewish extremist, who was filmed shooting Rabin, confessed to the act and has never recanted his testimony.

“We, who were left to fight the battle of preserving [Rabin’s] legacy, stand before a complex reality that makes it very difficult,” Dalia Rabin says. “A third of the country believe a conspiracy, a fifth say out loud that the murderer’s conviction is flawed. Something is definitely flawed.”

— Michael Bachner