Yitzhak Rabin: An Eulogy
Communique by Elias Davidsson to those concerned with truth, honesty and justice 1995, regarding the death of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Prime Minister. On Saturday 4. November 1995 an extremist Zionist assassinated Israel's Prime Minister, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, in Tel Aviv. The murderer claimed that Mr. Rabin was a traitor to the Jewish people and should be killed. Within hours after Rabin's death, a massive and world-wide disinformation campaign was launched extolling Mr. Rabin as a great statesman and commending him for his will and courage to make peace with the Palestinians. European and American politicians vied with each other to sing the praise of Mr. Rabin for his statesmanship. Once again the media failed to make the distinction between propaganda and news, between facts and phantasy. Once again the media became a mere tool in the hands of powerful interests.
While the event of the assassination was clearly dramatic and sensational, one of the less noticed sequels of this event was the closure by the Israeli army of the Gaza strip. The word 'closure' does not convey though the nature of such action. What it entails is that 800.000 people, men, women and children, are closed off from the outside world behind barbed wire in what is the largest ghetto of the Middle-East. The closure was reported in some media - in small letters though. No one connected this closure with the policies of the late Mr. Rabin, his Zionist ideology, his participation in ethnical cleansing. No one dared to put things in proportion: On one hand the assassination of one old person who has in his lifetime harmed hundreds of thousands of people and on the other the collective punishment of 800.000 people for one sole reason: They are Arabs.
For the sake of completeness it is worthwhile to mention here the fact that Israel is entitled, according to the 'peace' accords Mssrs. Rabin and Arafat signed between themselves, to close off the Palestinians in their ghettoes whenever they wish. Thus, Israel routinely closes the Palestinians in their 'homelands' whenever the Israeli public demands it: In high holidays and in days of mourning. The 'peace' we are witnessing is the peace between the ruler and the ruled, not that of two equal partners. Such peace cannot last and will not last.
EULOGY
Yitzhak Rabin was a uncompromising Zionist since his youth. He never strayed from his Zionist ideals. Those who accuse Mr. Rabin of treason against the Jewish people, do it either in bad faith or they are just hallucinating. Mr. Rabin obtained, with perseverance and the full backing of the United States' administration, what no other Zionist leader until then could obtain: The official recognition of Israel by Arab states and the PLO leadership, the end of the Arab trade boycott against Israel, the continuation (in a new form) of Israel's de facto sovereignty over all of Palestine, the control by Israel of Palestinian land and water resources, the end of the Intifada, the dismantlement of the PLO and the liquidation of the Palestinian refugee question. The dismal financial situation of the PLO, after the Gulf war, provided Israel with the opportunity to deal a deadly blow to Palestinian aspirations. This was the biggest victory obtained by the Zionist movement since its inception.
Yitzhak Rabin was a committed Zionist, little prone for sentimentality and compassion. He did not hate Arabs. For him the presence of Palestinians constituted merely a negative factor for the realization of a secure and strong Jewish state. This factor had to be eliminated or neutralized. Mr. Rabin did not hesitate to use any means to achieve these purposes. No Israeli, living or dead, has ever reached the extent of Mr. Rabin's crimes:
- In 1948 Mr. Rabin ordered his soldiers to expell all the inhabitants of Lydda and Ramleh from their homes, about 50.000 people. As the inhabitants were not willing to leave on their own accord, a few massacres and some rapes, convinced them to leave. On their march to exodus, many more died.
- In 1967 Mr. Rabin ordered the Israeli army to expell the inhabitants of three villages near Latroun (Emwas, Nuba and Beit Yalou) and blow up their homes. These 10.000 people were never allowed to return, build their homes or even bury their dead on the former villages' land.
- In 1988 Mr. Rabin ordered Israeli soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian youngsters by systematic blows as an extra-judicial and immediate form of corporal punishment to deter them throwing stones on the occupation forces.
- In 1993 (only two years ago !!), Mr. Rabin ordered the Israeli army to carpet-bomb South-Lebanon with the aim to provoke the flight of about half a million people from their homes, to depopulate the targeted area. All the above actions are classified as war crimes in international law. It is the duty of all signatory states of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 to prosecute any individual responsible for such acts. The fact that prosecution has not taken place has little to with lack of evidence but with the lack of morality and political will.
Mr. Rabin was never willing to discuss publicly his participation in the above deeds. His strong political position, including a full support of several US administrations that he enjoyed, precluded any international action to bring him to trial. He has thus avoided trial and could ignore with impunity all charges levelled against him in the press.
It is perhaps ironical that it was a zealous Zionist who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, but this should not come as a surprise. Zionism was at all times a ruthless, inhuman ideology and enterprise, which placed racist and nationalist ideology above the rights of individuals. But while Labour-Zionism reserved racist and inhuman practices to non-Jews, the more extreme form of Zionism - often termed Revisionism - did not spare Jews from physical assault, if they were considered lax on Arabs. From the point of view of Palestinian Arabs, the difference between the two main segments of Zionism is merely a matter of taste: Both have aimed and aim at the liquidation of Palestinian nationalism and the final dispossession of Palestinians.
Now that Yitzhak Rabin cannot harm anybody any more, it is incumbent upon Israelis to face squarely his true life story, including his participation in war crimes. It is important to make Israelis aware that facing the criminal past of their leaders does not implicate them of criminal complicity. The Zionist leadership has systematically repressed public knowledge about this dark record. Most Israelis are not aware of the nature and extent of crimes committed by their leaders. The victims of these crimes still await at least an apology from the Israeli public for these crimes and some form of moral and material compensation.
The duty of all well-intentioned people is to uphold principles of justice and truth. The agreements made between the Zionist regime and Mr. Arafat under conditions of coercion are a travesty of justice and truth. They were concluded without consulting the principal victims of Zionism - the inhabitants of the occupied territories and the Palestinian refugees. They therefore cannot lead to real peace but to further alienation and conflict. Those who stood by the Palestinian people during their years of struggle, should continue to do so, until the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, reaffirmed year after year by the General Assembly of the United Nations, are fulfilled. There is no alternative to justice. And only justice can lead to a lasting peace.
Elias Davidsson
