The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
Archiv: Yitzhak Rabin / assassination on 04.11.1995
State Archives: 30th anniversary of PM Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination
Israel‘s State Archives published a rare collection of documents on Monday, marking the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Under the title „From the Prime Minister‘s Desk – The Last Year of Yitzhak Rabin‘s Life,“ approximately 250 files, containing over 30,000 pages, were unveiled, providing a unique glimpse into Rabin‘s activities in the last year of his life and the political, public, and personal tension that prevailed in the period leading up to his assassination.
Odeh urges opposition factions to work together to topple Netanyahu’s government ‘as soon as possible’
Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh calls on fellow opposition factions to join together to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “as soon as possible.”
Addressing reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Odeh says that the government has three aims during the current parliamentary session, “harming the West Bank…promoting the judicial coup…and preventing the Arab population from running in the next elections.”
Shimon Peres Witnessed Israel‘s History, and Shaped it
(September 28, 2016)
After Rabin‘s assassination by a Jewish ultranationalist opposed to Israel‘s peace moves in 1995, Peres became acting prime minister. But he failed to capitalize on the widespread sympathy for the fallen leader and lost a razor-thin election the following year to Netanyahu.
In one famous incident, an angry Peres rhetorically asked a gathering of his Labor Party whether he was a „loser.“ Resounding calls of „yes“ rained down on him.
Peres would later blame a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings for his defeat. He described his visit to the scene of a deadly bus explosion in Jerusalem, where people started screaming „killer“ and „murderer“ at him. „I knew that I lost the election,“ he said.
BOMBING IN ISRAEL: HAMAS;Split in Hamas Seen as Bomb Follows Vow Of Brief Halt
(March 4, 1996(
In a leaflet distributed in Jerusalem today, „The Cells of the Martyr the Engineer Yahya Ayyash — the New Pupils“ said the bombing was „the end of our violent revenge“ for the death of Mr. Ayyash, a Hamas bomb maker killed on Jan. 5 in the Gaza Strip by an exploding cellular phone widely believed to have been planted by Israeli agents.
The Cells of the Martyr group had taken responsibility for the suicide bombings last Sunday in Jerusalem and in the coastal Israeli town of Ashkelon, and appears to be a renegade offshoot of the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades.
A leaflet issued last Thursday by the Qassam Brigades offered an eight-day respite from attacks while Israel considered the Brigades‘ conditions for a cease-fire: an end to Israeli violence against Hamas members and other Palestinians and the release of all Hamas prisoners in Israel jails.
Ignoring that offer, The Cells of the Martyr blew up a bus today and set its own terms for a cease-fire, declaring that it would halt attacks for three months to enable Hamas and Israel to reach a truce mediated by the Palestinian Authority, the governing body led by Yasir Arafat.
The Cells criticized the Qassam Brigades for its truce offer, and warned that attacks would resume if Israel pursued Hamas militants. Addressing Israelis ahead of the May 29 national election, the group said, „Neither the Labor party nor the Likud party will give you security as long as your Government practices terrorism against us and continues to arrest members of our people.“
BOMBINGS IN ISRAEL: THE OVERVIEW;2 Suicide Bombings in Israel Kill 25 and Hurt 77, Highest Such Toll
(February 26, 1996)
Although Government and opposition leaders joined in condemning the attacks and both sides refrained from recriminations, there was no question that the revival of terror attacks, with the worst carnage to date in suicide bombings, would have a profound impact on the campaign for national elections on May 29.
While Prime Minister Shimon Peres and his Labor Party have held a sizable lead in public-opinion polls over the conservative Likud opposition since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November, all political pundits have said that could change sharply and rapidly if Palestinian terrorists struck again.
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
Iranian foreign minister accuses Netanyahu of duping Trump into ‚mother of forever wars‘
In a post on X, Araghchi said Netanyahu was „a con man who has duped successive US Presidents into fighting his own wars for almost three decades. By all indications, the purpose of Netanyahu‘s criminal attack on Iran – killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children – is to scuttle a DEAL between Iran and the US, which we were on the right path to achieve.
Araghchi also accused Netanyahu of „playing“ President Donald Trump and American taxpayers „for absolute fools“. He said if Trump was serious about diplomacy, it would take „one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu“. He also warned that an absence of a negotiated solution would have untold consequences for regional security and the global economy and get the US „mired in the Mother of Forever Wars“.
Srulik Einhorn for Jerusalem Post: How Israel is winning the war against progressive elites – opinion
(January 2024)
In Israel, they like to say that they are fighting a war on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, and Iraq. But the truth is that Israel has fought, and with great success, against one more front, which is not talked about much: the front of the global left and progressive activists.
This front encompasses a network of activists, academics, and media that often cast Israel in a negative light, focusing on narratives of colonialism and oppression. Israel’s victory in this campaign is perhaps the most important for the future of the world.
Gaza is the greatest test liberalism has faced since 1945. And it is failing
Pro-Israeli lobbies have hijacked most western liberal democracies.
The whole world is now privy to the shameless pimping of western politicians previously documented in Congressman Paul Findley‘s 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out and reinforced by the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
As an anonymous commentator wrote: “People think Gaza is occupied, but in reality, Gaza is free but the whole world is occupied.”
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
Is Netanyahu prolonging the Gaza war to cling to power?
“In short, the longer he’s embroiled in war, the longer he can put off some kind of domestic political shift,” Zonszein said.
Netanyahu is playing up the challenges of holding elections during wartime and has made dramatic assertions like: “Hamas and Hezbollah want Israel to go to early elections, it would be a victory for them”.
However, the majority of Israelis still believe that Netanyahu’s wartime decision-making is primarily motivated by political interests, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Israeli Channel 13.
Hostage Deaths Fuel Israelis’ Doubts About Netanyahu
n the face of increasing pressure from the United States, Britain and Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his opposition to what these allies see as the future of Gaza: an interim government overseen by the Palestinian Authority and an eventual Palestinian state existing alongside Israel.
Speaking only hours after the army admitted to shooting three Israeli hostages as they held up a white flag in Gaza, fueling consternation and anger among Israelis, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to be trying to change the subject, boasting that he had prevented the creation of a Palestinian state in the past and would continue to do so.
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
PM: I’m proud I blocked a Palestinian state. Looking at Gaza, everyone sees what would have happened
At the Tel Aviv press conference, Netanyahu is asked by a reporter why he did not withdraw from the Oslo Accords, given that he keeps criticizing them.
“I inherited the Oslo Accords,” he says. “The decision to bring the PLO from Tunis, and plant it in the heart of Judea and Samaria [West Bank], and in Gaza, was a decision made and implemented before I became prime minister. I thought it was a terrible mistake and I still do.”
Turning on the reporter, he says: “You and your journalist friends have been blaming me for almost 30 years for putting the brakes on the Oslo Accords, and preventing the Palestinian state. That’s true,” he says.
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
Israel-Palestine: Gaza and Jenin bombed as Netanyahu braces for ‚possible war‘ with Palestinian Authority
In a recorded statement published on X, Netanyahu said he will not let Israel repeat the “mistake” of the Oslo Accords, and that Gaza will neither be “Hamastan nor Fatahstan”.
Earlier, he was quoted on the Israeli public broadcaster as saying that Israel was preparing for a possible war with the PA in the West Bank.
“It can’t be that after the enormous sacrifice of our citizens and fighters, we will let into Gaza those who teach terror, support terror, finance terror,” he said.
Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior PA and Fatah leader, said Netnayhu’s remarks “confirm his war against all Palestinians”.
Hadar Morgan a granddaughter of a holocaust survival : “How could we have become what we opposed? That‘s the big question.“ Hadar Morag, Israeli filmmaker
How Netanyahu‘s Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel
(Oct 28, 2023)
This symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas has been remarked on for years, by both friends and enemies, hawks and doves.
Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel‘s Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that „if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas‘s strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister.“
In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu‘s „strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.“
On the anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, I delve into my vault of archive reporting to reflect on his legacy as a martyr for peace.
You can watch The Amanpour Archive on my new show #TheAmanpourHour on @CNN every Saturday at 11am ET.
Today marks the anniversary of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination by a right-wing extremist who opposed the Oslo Accords. It was a watershed moment. 28 years later, the views of Rabin’s assassin are more powerful in Israel & peace farther away than ever.
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
Israel-Palestine crisis has ‘reached an unprecedented level of dehumanisation’: Independent rights expert
The independent human rights expert also criticised Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands and the mistreatment of Palestinians.
“We are talking of an occupying power. Israel is an occupying power vis a vis the Palestinians. There is no independent and sovereign Palestinian state,” said Ms. Albanese.
“The occupation has been the vehicle to colonise, brutalise, arbitrarily arrest and detain and to carry out summary executions against the Palestinian people.”
She criticised the international community for not doing more to end the illegal occupation.
“Has the international community ever stopped this protracted illegality? No. This is why I keep on saying the international community has a huge, huge responsibility in the catastrophe that is now unfolding.”
Secretary-General‘s remarks to the Security Council – on the Middle East [as delivered]
I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.
All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
Excellencies,
It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Israel livid after UN chief says Hamas attacks ‘did not occur in vacuum’
Israeli officials railed at UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Tuesday after he appeared to suggest the impetus for the Hamas terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel was the Jewish state’s continued control of Palestinian territories.
Thirty years after the Oslo Accords, no one talks about peace in Israel and Palestine
In November 1995, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin organized an event in Tel Aviv in defense of the Oslo Accords he had reached two years earlier with the Palestinians. The objective was to try to regain the initiative in the face of the growing right-wing campaign against him.
In his speech in front of a crowd of about 100,000, the pragmatic Rabin — who ended up believing in a dialogue that began behind his back — said the word ‘peace’ 31 times. On average, once every 20 words. The event concluded with the Song for Peace (“Don’t say the day will come, make it come”). Minutes later, a Jewish right-wing extremist murdered him for “handing over his land and his people to the enemies,” as he would proudly admit at trial.
Oslo Accords: 30 years of lost Palestinian hopes
It is the 30th anniversary of the breakthrough Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. The peace deal led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, intended to provide interim self-government for just five years while negotiations solved outstanding core issues in the conflict. Today, nearly a decade after peace talks collapsed, the PA remains in place, but is losing its legitimacy.
30 years after Arafat-Rabin handshake, clear flaws in Oslo Accords doomed peace talks to failure
After an interim period of five years, the thinking went, a Palestinian state would exist side by side with Israel. And through such a two-state solution, peace between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved.
Thirty years later, it is clear the Oslo Accords have achieved neither peace nor a two-state solution.
Yitzhak Rabin – The Last Speech (English Subtitles)
The last speech of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical on November 4th 1995 in Tel Aviv.
On This Day: Israel, Palestinians sign Oslo I Accord 30 years ago
The agreement was signed by then-Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)‘s Mahmoud Abbas and then US secretary of state Warren Christopher, and was later followed up with a public signing ceremony in September.
The accord was the result of secret negotiations facilitated by then-US president Bill Clinton, and later followed up in 1995 by the Oslo II Accord.
ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION: 50 YEARS OF DISPOSSESSION
(June 2017)
For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there.
We can’t wait 30 more years for another breakthrough in the Middle East
(06.09.2023)
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Ex-Israeli General Says Army Partner in West Bank War Crimes, Invokes Nazi Germany
Speaking to Israel’s public broadcasting station Kan, Amiram Levin, former head of the Israeli army’s Northern Command, said that “there hasn’t been a democracy there in 57 years, there is total apartheid.” According to Levin, “the IDF, which is forced to exert sovereignty there, is rotting from the inside. It’s standing by, looking at the settler rioters and is beginning to be a partner to war crimes. These are deep processes.”
When asked to elaborate on the specific “processes,” Levin invoked Nazi Germany. “It’s hard for us to say it, but it’s the truth. Walk around Hebron, look at the streets. Streets where Arabs are no longer allowed to go on, only Jews. That’s exactly what happened there, in that dark country.”