by Uri Heitner
Arguing that Rabin's murder torpedoed the peace process absolves the Palestinians of responsibility and helps the Left evade the historical truth: Our "partners" in Ramallah refused peace.
"The
Rabin murder is the most successful political murder in history,"
asserted Meretz leader MK Tamar Zandberg. The murderer, Yigal Amir, is
sitting in his prison cell, is basking in pleasure. He can see the myth
being built around him: He's the person who stopped the wheels of
history in their tracks; he won, his path won. If there are any other
Amirs out there, they too are hearing and internalizing the message. If
he succeeded, they ponder, we too can succeed. An irresponsible comment
of this sort loads their warped minds with ammunition. Even if there
were a kernel of truth in the claim of Amir's victory, caution should be
practiced when engaging in this dangerous discourse – all the more so
when the claim is baseless.
According to the myth Zandberg is
diligently cultivating, had it not been for his murder, Yitzhak Rabin
would have assuredly won the elections and completed the Oslo process;
culminating in a final peace contract between Israel and the
Palestinians to end the conflict.
Utter nonsense. On the eve of the murder,
the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was beating Rabin in the polls. In
the wake of the murder, the polls drastically turned and Shimon Peres
emerged with a 40% lead over Netanyahu. Those who pushed public opinion
and Israeli voters to the right, toward Netanyahu, were the
Palestinians, following a chain of deadly terrorist bombings in the
winter of 1996. Had it not been for the murder, Netanyahu would have had
the momentum and the result would have been similar to Ariel Sharon's
landslide victory after the Camp David summit between Yasser Arafat and
Ehud Barak and the campaign of terror in its wake.
And even if Rabin would have won the
elections, he wouldn't have reached a final-status agreement. In
contrast to his image as a diplomatic dove, which the Left insists on
marketing, Rabin was hawkish in his views. On the eve of the murder he
laid out his diplomatic legacy in a Knesset speech, in which he
presented the red lines for a final-status deal: We won't return to the
pre-1967 borders. … A united Jerusalem, including Maaleh Adumim and
Givat Ze'ev as the capital of Israel, under Israeli rule. … Israel's
security border will be in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest sense of
the geographical term. … Gush Etzion, Efrat and Beitar will be under
Israeli rule. … Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will
remain under Israeli rule without any change in their status.
Quite the gap from the offers made by Ehud
Barak and Ehud Olmert, which the Palestinians predictably rejected with
bullets, bombs and terror. Around the time of his death, Rabin had
frozen the withdrawal from Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria
because of terrorist incidents. His successor, Shimon Peres, changed the
policy, pulled back from the cities, and the result is a matter of
historical record.
The waves of terror that trailed these
concessions in Judea and Samaria, and again following the disengagement
from the Gaza Strip, are evidence that the conflict doesn't stem from
"occupation." Therefore, no withdrawal will lead to peace. The conflict
is rooted in the Palestinians' refusal to accept the presence of Jews in
this land and Israel's right to exist. Peace isn't on the docket
today and wasn't on the docket when Rabin was alive, either.
Amir didn't influence diplomatic processes.
No one affected them more than Palestinian Authority President Yasser
Arafat, who misled Rabin. Arguing that his murder torpedoed the peace
process absolves the Palestinians of responsibility for their
belligerence and helps the Left evade the historical truth: It wasn't
the murder that destroyed the chance for peace; it was our "partners" in
Ramallah.
Uri Heitner
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/rabins-murder-didnt-kill-peace/
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