Ethan Bronner reports in a letter from Tel Aviv on Remembering Rabin, Some See His Legacy Fading Bronner quotes Ben Dror Yemini:
“The truth is the opposite,” he wrote. “Rabin’s assassination saved the Israeli left wing.” He added that before the killing, “There were terror attacks that gave rise to the phrase ‘the price of peace.’ The polls predicted a terrible fall for the Labor Party, and the strengthening of the right wing. The right wing not only ruled the violent and stormy street. The right wing also ruled in people’s hearts.”
Yemini’s statement is significant because it is the only metion in the whole article of terror. But it’s also significant because it refutes the common assumption – implicit in the Bronner article – that the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin was the downfall of the peace process.
Shortly before he was killed by an extremist named Yigal Amir, Rabin had passed Oslo II using a promise of power to get the necessary votes to pass the treaty. Terror which had increased after the conclusion of the initial Oslo Accords remained high. And Binyamin Netanyahu was running an effective campaign against Rabin. In October 1995, Netanyahu first surpassed Yitzchak Rabin in the polls. It’s easy to argue that Netanyahu’s election was the end of Oslo, but if Rabin had not been assassinated, Netanyahu would likely have cruised to victory in the 1996 elections.
In fact the only reason Netanyahu was elected after being blamed (unfairly) for the assassination of Rabin is because of the wave terror that was carried out against Israel in February and March of 1996.
In seeking to identify a legacy of Yitzchak Rabin, Bronner underplays the terror that accompanied the beginning of the peace process. True, I suppose, that Bronner does acknowledge:
But with the failure of the Oslo accords, the violence of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, the withdrawal from Lebanon that increased Hezbollah’s power and the rise of Hamas in Gaza after Israel pulled out, land-for-peace is viewed with skepticism by a rising portion of the Israeli public.
This seems like a reluctant afterthought. The Oslo Accords didn’t just fail, they were violated time and again by Yasser Arafat, the man who many gambled – incorrectly – had renounced violence when he hadn’t. He acquiesced to (if not encouraged) the growth of Hamas in areas where he had authority.
“[V]iewed with skepticism” is an interesting way to put it. But given that whenever Israel ceded territory (1995, 2000, 2005) Israel faced increased, not less terror, no rational person would conclude that concessions were working.
Bronner observes later|:
Meanwhile, international impatience toward Israeli treatment of Palestinians has been growing. Israelis may feel integrated into the global economy but they feel politically alone. Here, too, there is an internal debate. The left thinks Israel is partly if not largely responsible for the world’s hostility while the right argues that the antagonism is a result of anti-Semitism and opposition to Israel’s existence. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tends to favor the second argument.
What he omits here is that the Palestinians have a lot more control over their own lives than they had 17 years ago, despite the terror and Israel is still blamed for not doing more for peace. If the motivation for the condemnation is not antisemitism, what is it? There is no other country which would be asked to tolerate the terror and incitement that Israel is asked to.
In looking for a way to remember Rabin, Bronner has forgotten (or greatly downplayed) the terror.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
