ASSASSINATION IN ISRAEL: THE OVERVIEW;RABIN SLAIN AFTER PEACE RALLY IN TEL AVIV; ISRAELI GUNMAN HELD; SAYS HE ACTED ALONE
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
Published: November 05, 1995
Correction Appended
Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who led Israel to victory in 1967 and began the
march toward peace a generation later, was shot dead by a lone assassin
this evening as he was leaving a vast rally in Tel Aviv.
Mr.
Rabin, 73, was struck down by one or two bullets as he was entering his
car. Police immediately seized a 27-year-old Israeli law student, Yigal
Amir, who had been active in support of Israeli settlers but who told
the police tonight that he had acted alone.
The police said Mr. Amir had also told them that he had tried twice before to attack the Prime Minister.
It
was the first assassination of a prime minister in the 47-year history
of the state of Israel, and it was certain to have extensive
repercussions on Israeli politics and the future of the Arab-Israeli
peace.
Mr. Rabin was to lead his Labor party in elections
scheduled for November next year, and without him the prospects for a
Labor victory, and of a continuation of his policies, were thrown into
question.
In
the immediate aftermath, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Mr. Rabin's
partner in the peace negotiations, automatically became Acting Prime
Minister. It was widely expected that he would be formally confirmed as
Mr. Rabin's successor.
Mr. Rabin, who rose to national prominence
as commander of the victorious Israeli army in the 1967 Six-Day War,
became the second Middle Eastern leader, after President Anwar el-Sadat
of Egypt, to be killed by extremists from his own side for seeking an
Arab-Israeli peace. Mr. Sadat, the first Arab to make peace with Israel,
was assassinated in 1984.
Mr. Rabin and his Labor Government have
come under fierce attack from right-wing groups over the peace with the
Palestinians, especially since the agreement transferring authority in
the West Bank to the Palestine Liberation Organization was reached in
September. Mr. Rabin has been heckled at many of his appearances in
recent weeks and his security has been tight.
A gruff,
chain-smoking career military man, Mr. Rabin led Israel both in its
greatest military triumph and in one of its most dramatic bids for
peace.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Rabin, obviously buoyed by
the huge turnout of more than 100,000 supporters of the peace process,
told the rally, "I always believed that most of the people want peace
and are ready to take a risk for it." [Excerpts, page 16A.]
He
then joined other participants in singing the "Song of Peace," a popular
paean. Unfamiliar with the words, the prime minister followed from a
text he tucked into his pocket.
Hours after the shooting, Mr.
Peres said the blood-soaked sheet of music was found in his pocket and
stood as a symbol of Mr. Rabin's sacrifice.
Since achieving a
historic peace agreement with the P.L.O. in 1993, and especially since
the follow-up agreement two months ago on establishing Palestinian
self-rule in much of the West Bank, Mr. Rabin had come under
increasingly bitter attack from Jewish residents of West Bank
settlements and right-wing opponents of the agreement.
In recent
months, he had been heckled at his appearances and had received open
threats from extremist groups. The fury of the criticism led to a
tightening of security around him and other government ministers, and to
a growing debate about the potential for violence.
As he walked
to his car this evening, Mr. Rabin gave his last interview to a radio
reporter, saying, "I always believed that the majority of the people are
against violence, violence which in the recent period took a shape
which damages the framework of fundamental values of Israeli democracy."
At
9:30 P.M., as he was preparing to enter his car, there were four shots.
Two struck one of Mr. Rabin's bodyguards, who was reported in critical
condition. One or two struck the prime minister. The Minister of Health,
Ephraim Sneh, said Mr. Rabin had no heartbeat or blood pressure when he
arrived at Ichilov Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 11:10 P.M.
At
11:15 P.M. the director of Mr. Rabin's office, Eytan Haber, came out
before the waiting crowd at the hospital to read a brief statement: "The
Government of Israel announces with shock and deep sorrow the death of
the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by an assassin
tonight in Tel Aviv."
The crowd, which only recently was singing and dancing in the streets, erupted in shouts of "No! No!"
The
rally had been called by a coalition of left-wing political parties and
peace groups as a response to increasingly strident street protests by
the right-wing opponents of the peace agreement. More than 100,000
people turned out on Kings of Israel Square in front of Tel Aviv's city
hall; organizers declared it the largest rally in the coastal city in at
least a decade.
As word spread, seens of grief and fear spread
through Israeli streets. In Jerusalem, women wept and stunned students
gathered in groups, wondering what would happen to them and their
future.
"I'm not crying for Rabin, I'm crying for Israel," one
woman sobbed. About 1,000 mourners gathered outside Mr. Rabin's
residence with candles, while devout Jews gathered at the Western Wall
in the Old City to chant memorial prayers.
For all the passion of
the debate over the peace, the notion of an assassination of an Israeli
leader by an Israeli Jew was far from anybody's mind in a nation whose
greatest bond has been the joint Jewish struggle for survival against
hostile Arab neighbors.
Mr. Rabin's spokewoman and close aide,
Aliza Goren, who was next to him when he was shot, said, "I never
imagined that a Jew would murder a Jew. It's a horrible thing. If
someone imagines that he can seize power through murder, then our state
is simply finished."
In the immediate aftermath, the police gave
no indication that the student, Mr. Amir, had any support, though some
reporters received messages on their beepers from an unknown group that
described itself as the "Jewish Avenging Organization" taking
responsiblity for the attack.
The police said that before entering
the law school of Bar-Ilan University, Mr. Amir had studied in a
yeshiva, a religious institution, and was a member of Eyal, an extreme
right-wing group. Eyal leaders, however, denied any link to the killing.
Like
many Israelis, Mr. Amir was licensed to carry a pistol. He lived in
Herzliya, a northern suburb of Tel Aviv. The Israeli radio said he had
confessed, and quoted him as saying: "I acted alone on God's orders and I
have no regrets."
About an hour after the death was announced,
the full Cabinet met, with Mr. Rabin's place draped in black. Ministers
wept as Mr. Peres eulogized Mr. Rabin as a rare and determined leader
who was aware of the risk he took.
Mr. Peres also vowed that the
process he and Mr. Rabin launched would continue: "We are all determined
to continue on this great path, to serve the people, the state. The
only thing we can do after this tragedy is to continue on this course."
Officials
said Mr. Rabin's body would lie in state at the Parliament on Sunday
and would be buried on Monday afternoon at the Israeli state cemetery on
Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem. President Clinton is among the leaders to
announce that he would attend.
Mr. Clinton had led the historic
meeting on Sept. 13, 1993, at which Mr. Rabin shook hands with Yasir
Arafat, the chairman of the P.L.O., and began the journey toward peace.
Mr. Clinton also presided over the signing of the follow-up agreement
last Sept. 28 that set out the schedule for the transfer of authority to
the Palestinians over their population centers in the West Bank.
In
Gaza, Mr. Arafat expressed condolences and the hope that the process
toward peace would continue, saying, "I hope that we will have the
ability -- all of us, Israelis and Palestinians -- to overcome this
tragedy against the peace process, against the whole situation in the
Middle East."
Israeli conservative leaders immediately condemned the attack and joined in expressing their grief.
Benjamin
Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud opposition coalition, called the
assassination "one of the worst tragedies in the history of the state of
Israel, and even the history of the Jewish people."
With Mr.
Peres and Mr. Arafat, Mr. Rabin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1994 for the secret negotiations in 1993 that led to the agreement to
end Israeli rule over the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
But
the peace also provoked a loud and passionate opposition. Settlers and
right-wing nationalists have held held constant demonstrations and
protests, blocked intersections and jeering Mr. Rabin wherever he
appeared.
In the immediate grief, there was little discussion of
the political repercussions of the assassination. But it was bound to
have a major impact. In the elections scheduled for next November,
voters will be voting separately for the prime minister for the first
time in Israeli history, and Mr. Rabin's personality, age and record
were expected to be a central issue.
Mr. Peres is generally
acknowledged to be far less popular than than Mr. Rabin was, and it was
possible that Labor would seek a more acceptible leader.
Mr.
Rabin's popularity stemmed from his record as a genuine war hero, and
from his reputation for rough candor. He was accepted by supporters as a
man they could trust, and many political analysts felt that no other
contemporary political leader could have persuaded Israelis to accept a
deal with Mr. Arafat, who was universally perceived in Israel as a
terrorist dedicated to the crushing of the Jewish state.
Born on
March 20, 1922, Mr. Rabin came to national prominence as the military
chief of staff during the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel swept through
the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The images of Israeli soldiers
weeping at the Western Wall, previously in Arab hands, remain a national
icon in Israel.
After the war, Mr. Rabin was appointed Ambassador
to Washington, where he served from 1968 to 1973. He was elected Prime
Minister in 1974, but was compelled to step down in 1977 over a scandal
involving an illegal bank account his wife held in the United States. He
was Defense Minister from 1984 to 1990, during the Arab uprising in
occupied territories, which he fought with an iron hand. Mr. Rabin
returned to the Prime Ministry in 1992.
A year later, he and Mr.
Peres stunned the world when they announced that secret negotiations
with the P.L.O. in Oslo had produced an agreement to end the hostility
between Israelis and Palestinians. The agreement was sealed with the
historic handshake between Mr. Rabin and Mr. Arafat at the White House
on Sept. 13, 1993. A year later, Israel signed a peace agreement with
Jordan, leaving only Syria and Lebanon among its neighbors still in a
state of hostility with Israel.
Correction:
November 6, 1995, Monday A front-page article yesterday about the
assassination of Yitzhak Rabin misstated the year President Anwar
el-Sadat of Egypt was assassinated. It was 1981, not 1984.
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