President Reuven Rivlin hosted a candle-lighting event today to mark the start of commemorations of the 21st anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Rabin was was gunned down by Yigal Amir, an extremist Jew, on November 4, 1995, amid national tensions over peace efforts with the Palestinians.
Rivlin says Israel has an obligation to learn a lesson from the killing of a prime minister.
Children help President Reuven Rivlin light a candle to mark the 21st anniversary of the assassination of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 11, 2016 (Chaim Zach / GPO)
“We have a responsibility to our children’s and grandchildren’s generations to find a way to be sure this fatal blow to the Israeli democracy that took place here 21 years ago, (is turned} into a lesson that needs to be learned again and again,” he says.
“We have no other country beside this great land, and we have no other people beside this great nation; and we have no other way to build this state but as a Jewish and democratic state,” the president says.
Israel is holding a series of official events around the Hebrew date of the assassination, that falls next week.
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From the Liveblog of
Thursday, November 10, 2016
