Leaders of the political left and center, speaking at the annual rally marking 23 years since the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, decried what they said was the government’s systematic use of “incitement” and “fearmongering” rhetoric and its persecution of political rivals to score political points, at the cost of dividing the country.
Tens of thousands of people attended the rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni told the crowd that “history is repeating itself,” with the left once again an acceptable target for right-wing hate, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fanning the flames.
“It’s enough to read the prime minister’s posts, to see his videos, to listen to his speeches, to read the violent talkbacks that these evil winds encourage: [Ideologies] that accuse any who think differently of treason, of posing a danger to the nation.
“Those who work towards peace are not traitors,” she said. “It was true then and it is true today.”
Zionist Union chief Avi Gabbay said: “Rabin chose peace and fought Hamas. Netanyahu gave up peace and capitulated to Hamas.”
He too accused the premier of “politics of hate.”
“We’ve had it with relentless fearmongering, we’ve had it with defamation against the police and the IDF chief of staff, against the president, against the media, against the Supreme Court. We’ve had it with pinning blame and marking traitors,” he said. “A government that encourages hatred between brethren is not an unavoidable fate.”
Meretz head Tamar Zandberg called Rabin’s murder “the most successful political killing in history…it succeeded. Mission accomplished. Peace was destroyed.”
Netanyahu, she said, “has turned incitement into his chief tool to leave the peace camp defeated, controlled, crushed…. Netanyahu’s biggest achievement is not 30 or 40 seats in the Knesset, but that he’s taught the Israeli public there is nothing to dream of or to aspire to. That war is our fate. That those who want peace are idiots, naive, or traitors.”
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid struck a more conciliatory tone, saying: “There are extremists on the right and on the left. We are obligated to stand up to them. But not all those who think differently are extreme or an existential threat. Not all those who think differently are enemies. Not all of the right murdered Rabin. Not all the left is to blame for terror…
