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Israel Still Suffers From Yitzhak Rabin's Assassination

Let's review the political facts of the last decade, which are so many missed strategic orientations, so many missed opportunities for a better future for Israel. No one could reasonably accuse Rabin, the victorious IDF chief of staff for the Six Day War (1967), of not being a valiant patriot, concerned for his country's security. He was assassinated by a fanatic manipulated by extreme right-wing religious milieus that had launched a campaign of denigration against the prime minister, openly accusing him of "treason." His "crime" was to have signed the Oslo peace accords with Arafat in September 1993. In exchange for the PLO's immediate recognition of the state of Israel, both parties made provision for the progressive establishment of a Palestinian state on the Gaza strip and West Bank - that is, on a territory representing 22% of the surface of the Palestinian Mandate (the former Ottoman region entrusted to Great Britain in 1922 by a League of Nations mandate).

Deeming that Palestine in its totality was a gift from God granted to the Jewish people, the Israeli religious extremists conspired for Rabin's elimination. His successor, Shimon Peres, missed the opportunity - furnished by the popular emotion consequent to the prime minister's assassination - to get rid of those religious settlers who have poisoned the life and destroyed the reputation of the Hebrew state for a good third of a century. Why didn't he immediately dismantle the most provocative settlements - and consequently those most costly in security terms - like the one in Hebron, established smack in the middle of Arab existence by raving lunatics from America?