What Would Have Happened If…

Yigal Sarna, Yedioth Aharonoth, Translated by Middle East Bulletin

Imagine a world in which the rally marking the twelfth anniversary of Rabin’s assassination does not take place. A world without Yigal Amir and his handgun and his infant son awaiting circumcision. A world in which Yitzhak Rabin got down off the stage in November 1995 and rode from there in his armored car with his loyal bodyguards and arrived at his home, and afterwards perhaps defeated Bibi and was elected as prime minister again, stubborn in his redheaded way and continuing the Oslo Accords.

Would that have been a completely different world from the one that surrounded last night’s rally for Yitzhak Rabin? Would it have been quieter? Would the many whom were killed in the Intifada afterwards still be with us? History is full of such "ifs." But that thought did not leave me during this annual ceremony that repeats itself to exhaustion, that every year shows the last speech once again, Eitan Haber’s agonized cry, the shock. There is something deadly about ceremonies. They wipe away the event that they are supposed to memorialize and take place in its stead, often as parody.

Is a ceremony necessary? After all, for some Israelis, all Israeli existence since 1995 is a kind of ongoing mourning rally in memory of the last prime minister who could be defined as a responsible man, a real person in charge, who sought to create a new Israeli agenda in which education, for example, moved to center stage.

But the soul needs ceremonies. So they put up fourteen chemical toilets. Two large balloons – one a security zeppelin in the sky, hundreds of police officers and guards, and brought thousands of youth group members to the square that has seen everything. Also there were several members of my generation who hoped in 1995, before the assassination, that their children would not stand at roadblocks and would not go into Gaza and would not examine Arabs’ underwear and bags. And that finally, there would be peace.

Penelope Cruz, sprawled out on a wall on Ibn Gvirol Street in an advertisement for "Mango," peeked over at the corner where Rabin was assassinated and it seemed that the deceased was also looking in her direction as his face was being screened on the giant plasma screen. The first to speak was the man who had also gone down the municipality’s stairs of death but was not shot, and is now the president. He mentioned the order of priorities and the old hope. Afterwards, I heard the delusional speech of the man who sees himself as Rabin’s successor in his dreams. Barak’s speech was comprised of fragments, shreds and crumbs of another hundred different speeches. "We will act with determination against all the threats," while at the same time, "We will do everything possible in order to reach the peace you dreamed of," said the man who, during his term, put an end to the agreements over which Rabin was assassinated.

When I wanted to go back to my home, which is near the site of the assassination-as I went in 1995 and from my home heard the helicopters and the caption about the gunshots that changed history began to run-the murdered man’s son rose to speak and destroyed the tranquility and routine of the ceremony. Standing and speaking for the first time in his life in the place where his father had stood before his death, Yuval Rabin reminded us of what had been forgotten for years for the sake of domestic peace and reconciliation-the despicable inciters of the murder who instigated Amir against Rabin, the complacency and helplessness that led to the failure and that still continue. And the circumcision that is about to be celebrated with the court’s approval. He spoke as the orphaned son of the murdered man who came to claim vengeance in the place where everyone celebrates a reconciliation ceremony upon his
father’s spilled blood.

Those were the words that gave the ceremony its reason for existing. The words of the unforgiving son.