PeaceWatch Volume 8 #10
November
2, 2006
Rabin's Legacy: 11 years after - Hell is indifference
11/02/2006
Eleven years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by
right-wing fanatic Yigal Amir, Yossi Sarid,
like many of us is quietly outraged. He is outraged by the fact that 30% of Israelis are willing to pardon Amir. Killing
the Prime Minister of Israel is apparently an acceptable way to change the government in their view. He is outraged by
the decision to allow Amir conjugal visits with his wife, Larissa Trimbobler. Sarid is right about that. He is wrong in
his conclusion, that all this poses no threat to security, because you can't assassinate the same man twice.
You can assassinate the man, you can assassinate his legacy, and you can assassinate the society he
helped create. The circumstances of the memorial ceremony held at the President's residence provide a bitter lesson in
themselves. Most government officials cancelled their attendance because they didn't want to be seen in the company of
the disgraced president of Israel, who is suspected of rape and corruption. Half the officials, beginning with PM Olmert
are themselves under investigation for corruption and crimes of varying magnitude. Only one official had the decency to
resign - the one accused of the most harmless offense. Haim Ramon resigned from the government because he was accused,
horror of horrors, of kissing a girl against her wishes. The government remains glued to their seats despite corruption,
and concludes a shameful alliance with right-wing extremist Avigdor Lieberman. The Labor party, the party of Rabin that
swore to honor his memory, remains in the government, though its leader, Amir Peretz, had promissed in his usual raucous
fashion that he would never sit in a government with Lieberman. Only Ofir Pines-Paz resigned.
It is all made possible because of cosmic indifference and ennui. Corruption, incompetence, a
miserable economic policy, a botched war, the IDF pounding away pointlessly in Gaza, killing innocent Palestinians as
well as a few terrorists, none of these seem to shake the indifference of the public. Rabin's legacy, the legacy of his
generation, is being killed more by indifference then by opposition and assassin's bullets.
Not everyone is indifferent. A much smaller, but growing, number of people, those who would pardon
Yigal Amir, know exactly what they want. They want a government of Yigal Amirs. They want a state and a Zionist movement
founded on religious principles. They use the corruption and incompetence to make their point - that only religion can
save Israeli society from mediocrity and disintegration. One day they may be the majority, and then the bored and
indifferent ones will no longer be be bored or indifferent, but it will be too late.
As I walked around Rabin Square a day after the assassination, I had the feeling I was living in a
nightmare. We haven't really awakened since then. We just got used to it. Hell is indifference.
Ami Isseroff
This article originally appeared at
http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000530.htm.
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