Netanyahu is leading Israel to its next political assassination
Rabin Square was filled
to capacity on Saturday night, and not thanks to the charisma of
opposition chairman Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union). Coalition Chairman
David Bitan (Likud) did the opposition’s work with his infuriating
statement to the effect that “Rabin’s assassination was not political.”
The tens of thousands of people who came to the square and were alarmed
at his words came to prove that the tactics of United States
presidential candidate Donald Trump – in which a lie becomes the truth
if repeated often enough – won’t work in Israel.
But
why complain about the messenger? The voice is that of Bitan’s patron –
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s thunderous silence at
Bitan’s words is a foolish attempt to rewrite history, and at the same
time absolve Netanyahu of his personal responsibility for Yitzhak
Rabin’s murder. Yes, Netanyahu is responsible because he allowed the
unbridled incitement of right-wing circles to run riot when he was
opposition leader and didn’t stop it, and in doing so granted a seal of
approval for the incitement, until it raged out of control.
Rabin’s
assassination is political, of course, because Rabin was murdered due
to his political views, by a right-wing extremist who opposed him
politically, and therefore the politician who was the head of the camp
from which the murderer emerged bears responsibility. Please note:
responsibility, not blame. Nobody suspects that Netanyahu intended to
incite to Rabin’s murder, or even imagined that the unbridled incitement
in the streets against the Oslo process and against the prime minister
who led the process would lead to murder.
Netanyahu
certainly didn’t even dream of the possibility of a political
assassination, and therefore he isn’t to blame. But he is responsible,
because a leader in a democratic country is responsible for conducting a
democratic discourse, and this responsibility includes checking
belligerence, preventing incitement and nipping hatred in the bud.
Netanyahu
did none of those things before Rabin’s assassination, and what is
shocking is that he isn’t doing any of them now either. On the contrary –
his silence at Bitan’s words is an attempt to absolve himself of
responsibility for his silence at the time, and the granting of a
renewed seal of approval to incitement.
Because
if Rabin’s assassination is not political, then the political
incitement is not the cause for the murder, and therefore it is
legitimate to incite once again. It is possible once again to spill the
blood of journalists, judges, politicians and leftists, because there is
no price for incitement. Because the fact is that even when incitement
ends in political assassination, the inciters are not responsible.
Netanyahu’s
resounding silence at Bitan’s words, and at the slandering of left-wing
circles as traitors and people who must not be allowed to work as
journalists, proves that he learned nothing from Rabin’s assassination,
nor does he have any intention of learning. The only lesson Netanyahu
learned from the terrible fracture in Israeli democracy, a fracture in
which he played a central role, is that the fracture and its lessons can
be consigned to oblivion if one lies long enough. The lie is the new
truth, and Netanyahu is Israel’s present prince of lies.
Twenty-one
years after Rabin’s assassination and 83 years after the murder of
Chaim Arlosoroff – which was also preceded by unbridled incitement by
extremist right-wing circles, and none of the leaders of the right at
the time protested against it prior to the murder or accepted
responsibility for it afterwards – those responsible for preventing the
next political assassination are cynically and indifferently shedding
their responsibility. That means that the next political assassination
in the State of Israel is only a matter of time.
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