Rabin’s sister slams PM silence on Bitan comments

Yitzhak Rabin’s 91-year-old sister Rachel lashes out at Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to condemn a claim by his coalition chairman that her brother’s murder at the hands of an extremist Jew was “not political.”

Left-wing and centrist politicians responded furiously yesterday to David Bitan’s claim that the 1995 assassination was not political because it was not carried out by a politician. The comments became the central focus of the speeches at last night’s memorial rally in Rabin Square, marking 21 years since the murder.

“The one who should [be talking about] this isn’t,” Rachel Rabin says, according to Channel 2. “The one who chairs the coalition says a weird thing — there is no other word — and … the prime minister is silent, as he always is. I expect that as prime minister and Likud leader he would tell the coalition chairman that it was indeed a political murder. What [Bitan] said is nonsense.”