Eight years ago last week, the fate of Israel was sealed. On Nov. 4, 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir. The murder was tragic, not just because Rabin suffered an untimely death but because Rabin became sacrosanct.
The illusory image of Rabin as the tough sabra willing to negotiate with the Arabs, as the invincible general turned peacemaker, as the tolerant, wise leader of the Jewish state, was forever enshrined in the public consciousness. Rabin’s political inheritance, the Oslo Accords, became unassailable.
On the anniversary of his death, it is now more necessary than ever to explode the myth of Yitzhak Rabin. As long as Rabin’s myth exists, it will be impossible to move beyond his failed policies: negotiation with terror, persecution of the Israeli right wing, apologies for Jewish existence.
Rabin was no “great general.” As Uri Milstein’s “The Rabin File” explains, Yitzhak Rabin bears responsibility for many of the most fouled-up military operations in Israeli history. On Dec. 9, 1947, during the War of Independence, Rabin took charge of the Jerusalem sector of the Palmach (the elite striking force of the Haganah, precursor to the Israel Defense Forces). Rabin’s task was to secure Jerusalem and access to the city. Under his watch, Israeli forces met with disaster after disaster. The substantial losses incurred by Rabin’s soldiers led the United States to withdraw support for the establishment of the Jewish state on March 19.
Rabin’s military record extends beyond incompetence. The celebrated soldier actually fled the field of battle in 1948. On April 20, a food and supply convoy set out for Jerusalem. The area fell under Rabin’s jurisdiction. His forces failed to secure the road, and the convoy was ambushed. When the ambush occurred, several officers attempted to lead counterattacks; Rabin did not. Instead, he personally drove away for reinforcements. After requesting reinforcements, Rabin did not return to fight with his men — he went to sleep.
One of Rabin’s proudest military moments came on June 22, 1948. Menachem Begin’s Irgun, another Israeli military group, was in the midst of negotiating a pact with David Ben-Gurion under which the Irgun would join the new Israel Defense Forces. Meanwhile, the Irgun had loaded a ship, the Altalena, with weapons and Jewish fighters (many of them Holocaust survivors) to join the IDF.
Ben-Gurion ordered that the Altalena be fired upon. Rabin carried out his orders to the letter. Later, Rabin bragged how he had “bumped them off on the deck of the burning ship and while they were trying to swim to safety.” Sixteen Jews were killed, many shot while swimming to shore.
So much for the “great general.” More importantly, however, Rabin’s true political legacy — the diabolical “peace process” — must be exposed. Before his election in 1992, Rabin promised the Israeli public that he would never negotiate with arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat or his murderous Palestine Liberation Organization. Yet before the Israeli elections, in May 1992, eight Labor Party members, led by master-appeaser Yossi Beilin, met with Abu Mazen (then the head of the PLO “political wing”) in Cairo. This was against Israeli law. According to Yehoshua HaMe’iri, a journalist then stationed in Cairo, “what was discussed was an attempt to ensure a Labor Party victory in the elections.”
A quid pro quo was made: Labor would work on behalf of the “Palestinians” if the PLO influenced Israeli Arabs to vote Labor.
After the election, the Rabin government immediately cracked down on Israelis opposing the Oslo Accords. Moshe Feiglin, now the head of the Manhigut Yehudit block within Likud, organized peaceful mass protests. Rabin retaliated by putting Feiglin on trial for “raising fear among the public.” At future protests, the Israeli police were used as a political organization, blocking protesters and sometimes assaulting them.
It is vital to remember that before Rabin’s murder, his peace program had been overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli public. By April 1994, Rabin’s approval rating had dropped to 41 percent. Before his assassination, Rabin was trailing anti-Oslo Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu by a wide margin. Only after his murder did the public glorify Rabin.
After Rabin’s death, the witch hunt shifted into high gear. The Israeli right wing found itself in a position akin to that of the American right wing after the Oklahoma City bombing. Eight years later, the madness has not ceased. The government has shut down the radio station Arutz Sheva, a right-wing news service; actions are underway to shut down Arutz Sheva’s Internet site as well.
Yitzhak Rabin did not deserve to be murdered. He simply deserved to lose the public trust. He deserved to live out his life in obscurity rather than dying a martyr for a detestable cause.
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