Tag Archives: Yitzhak Rabin

I Find Myself Respecting Him

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As I have written before, I have never been able to suppress a sneaking respect for Yigal Amir. Amir, let me remind those of you who have forgotten, is the guy who, this month twenty-four years ago, shot and killed then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Let me make myself absolutely clear: The man is an assassin. As such he deserves the sentence he has got, which is life imprisonment. Note that Israel, thank God (in my view) does not have the death penalty. In seventy years, the only person who was ever put to death under Israeli law was Adolf Eichmann, and he richly deserved it. Also that Israel, like many other countries, has in place a number of legal mechanisms that enables sentenced criminals, murderers included, to regain their freedom ahead of time. In practice few Israeli convicts, provided they do not die while serving their sentence, stay incarcerated until they expire.

Every time the media mention Amir they hasten to add the words, “the abominable murderer” to his name. In fact, though, there is nothing particularly abominable about him. He was born in 1970 to a religious family in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. His father is a religious scribe; his mother used to run a kindergarten that by all accounts was well-liked by the parents of the kids who attended it. Growing up, he combined religion with a particularly fiery form of nationalism, just as tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands other Israelis do to the present day.

Having served as an infantryman in the IDF, Amir went on to study law at the religious-nationalist University of Bar Ilan, not far from Tel Aviv. His contacts with similarly-minded students at the university drew the attention of the Security Service. But not to the point where any real measures were taken to prevent him from moving about freely and doing what he was already planning to do; and not, as I myself was able to verify on one or two occasions, to the point where approaching Rabin was made very difficult. On the evening of 4 November 1995, after several abortive attempts, Amir succeeded.

As he explained on several occasions, Amir had nothing against Rabin personally. If anything, to the contrary. His deed was inspired by a. The belief that giving away even a small part of the Land of Israel to foreigners, in this case the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was contrary to the will of God; and b. Fear that Israel’s security, even existence, would be compromised. Alone among Israeli politicians, Amir believed, Rabin looked as if he had both the will and the ability to make the move in question. That was why he had to go.

To my mind, the most interesting part in Amir’s life came after he had been sentenced. It began when no fewer than three heads of state—former President Moshe Katsav, present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert all went on record as saying that, contrary to long-established custom, he would never be released. Look who is talking, incidentally; of the three, two have since been prosecuted and served a prison sentence whereas the third, Netanyahu, is quite likely to do so in the future.

Going further still, in 2001 the Knesset passed the Yigal Amir Law, which prohibits a parole board from so much as recommending pardon or shortening time in prison for a murderer of a prime minister. As if the blood of a prime minister were redder than that of anyone else, his colleagues in the cabinet included. And as if any state that calls itself law-abiding has the right not only to enact personal laws but to enact them retroactively.

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Later too the “Prison Service”—itself an Orwellian expression that has its equivalents in other countries besides Israel—did whatever it could to make Amir’s life as miserable as possible. As by periodically denying him visitors, taking away TV, DVD and telephone privileges, and preventing him from praying and studying in the company of others as prescribed by Jewish religious law. Briefly, the kind of chicanery similar “Services” have engaged in from the beginning of history on. On several occasions he went to court in order to force the “Service” to observe the law. Sometimes with success, sometimes not.

The greatest act of defiance of all came in 2003-4. It started when a woman by the name of Larisa Trembovler, a doctor of philosophy who had been corresponding with Amir, announced that they were betrothed and intended to marry. Needless to say the “Service,” trying to play the role of God, objected and did everything it could to prevent the wedding from taking place. Legal analysts were of the opinion that, if the matter were brought to court, it would result in a victory for Amir; before things could get that far, though, the couple were able to outwit their tormentors and wed by proxy. Weddings by proxy are recognized in many religions, Judaism included. Which was why a rabbinical court validated the marriage.

That, however, did not put an end to the kind of chicanery Amir had suffered from for so long. First the ministry of the interior announced that it would not recognize him and his wife as a married couple. Next, after the Supreme Court forced its hand in this respect, the “Service” let it be known that it would not grant them a conjugal visit. Now Israeli law has granted conjugal visits even to the worst criminals: one such being Ami Popper, a man found guilty of killing seven Palestinians as they were waiting for an employer to pick them up. Once again Amir was able to win his case, after which he begot a son. Even as these words are being written, Amir is engaged in yet another legal battle concerning his right to correspond with some members of the public who believe he should be set free.

Let me repeat: Amir is a convicted murderer and fully deserves the sentence he has been given. What I cannot abide is the kind of retroactive and personal legislation that was called into being just against him. And the idea that, just because his victim was a prime minister, he should be subject to all kinds of chicaneries going beyond those inflicted on other convicted murderers. Watching the abovementioned few seconds’ worth of film of his life in prison, I could not help asking myself whether what the “Service” has been doing to him is not worse, morally speaking, than the crime he undoubtedly committed

Compared with the ”Service,” Amir is an oak of strength. Never at any point in his ordeal did he deny his guilt. Never at any point did he show remorse, beg for mercy, break down, grovel, or cry; briefly, put on any of the tricks people in his situation habitually use to mitigate their punishment or escape it altogether. For over twenty years now he has put to shame those who, whether as politicians or legislators or bureaucrats or wardens, have done everything they could to chicane him and are doing so even now.

For that, and for that alone, I find myself respecting him.

Lest We Forget

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Amir between two jailors

In Israel these days, a big debate is raging about Yigal Amir. Amir, for those of you who don’t know or have forgotten, was the guy who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin back in November 1995. Sentenced to life imprisonment, since then he has been in jail. As, by law, he deserves be. To avoid misunderstandings, let me repeat the last sentence: as, by law, he deserves to be.

The occasion for the debate is a newly produced documentary about his life. Should it, or should it not, be subsidized? Should it, or should it not, be shown? Is it, or is it not, “educational” (as Voltaire might have said, “education” is the last refuge of the scoundrel)? In my view, the fact that Amir has committed a crime and is being punished for it does not mean that he should not be allowed to have his say. Let alone that others should not be allowed to think, say and write about him. Just as they please.

Questioned after the deed, Amir maintained that there was nothing personal in it. He had never hated Rabin. To the contrary, he rather liked the man. They did in fact have some things in common. To wit, honesty and a certain kind of shyness. The reason why he acted, so Amir, was because he feared the Prime Minister would follow up on the Oslo Agreements and allow the Palestinians to establish a State in the West Bank and Gaza. That, in Amir’s view, was against God’s Law as well as a mortal danger to Israel.

I do not know anything about God’s Law. However, in this belief, about Rabin allowing the Palestinians to set up a State Amir was probably wrong. When Rabin died he no longer had a majority in Parliament. Chances are that he would have had to call new elections. And that he would have lost them to Likud. Which, at the time, was headed, for the first time, by a young leader by the name of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The documentary shows how Amir was brought up in a national-religious family (his father was a Torah student, his mother ran a kindergarten). He did his military service in an elite infantry unit and went on to study law at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. He chose it because its official ideological stance resembled, and sill resembles, his own. It holds that Israel should be a religious state and that it should never, ever, surrender the Occupied Territories. At the university he came into contact with a group of similarly-minded young people. Though just how much they knew about his intentions remains moot.

Since then Amir has been in jail. Allegedly for fear he would “influence” other prisoners—an idiotic idea, if you ask me—he spent the first seventeen years of his sentence in an isolation cell. His every move was monitored by CCTV. In other ways, too, he was being tormented and, in comparison with other murderers, discriminated against. I have seen a clip; you might think he was some kind of cockroach. It made me gag. Not at the man, but at the way he was being treated.

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As a practicing Jew, Amir believes that it is his duty to leave offspring, preferably a boy, behind him. Making use of some peculiarities of Jewish Law and exploiting the stupidity of his jailors who did everything they could to stop him, he succeeded in marrying Larisa Trembovler, a doctor of philosophy. They had met when he was teaching Judaism in Moscow; later she divorced her husband for his sake. He even succeeded in forcing the State to allow them to have intercourse. She became pregnant and gave him a son.

The film also shows his life in prison. Particularly moving is a section where, using the phone, he reads his son a story. When the child asks why he is in jail, Amir answers that it is because he had done something that is prohibited by law. That, in my view, is a hero. A man who does not allow the force of circumstances to break him but copes with them as best he can. All the time, thinking not just about himself but about others as well.

But this is not about Amir alone. It is about freedom. If not outer freedom, which Amir does not have and probably will never again have, then inner freedom. Never once in the entire twenty years that have passed since 1995 did Amir say that he regretted what he had done. Never once did he apologize, never once did he grovel, never once did he ask for mercy. In so doing he kept the most important thing in life. To wit, his inner freedom; the right to be what he is without asking anyone or anything for permission.

Of Stalin’s USSR, the Nobel-Prize winning writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn wrote that the only ones who enjoyed freedom in it were the inhabitants of the GULAG. Modern Israel (and not just Israel, but that is another matter) is, thank God, not quite as bad. However, as the debate about the film shows, it is bad enough. What really makes people mad at Amir is not what he did. It is the fact that, by his courageous behavior, he is showing his jailers, the police, the security services, the justice system, the State, most Israeli politicians, and large parts of the Israeli public that they have no power over him.

I myself am neither religious nor a supporter of “Greater Israel.” I most certainly do not condone Amir’s deed. But I do think that the petty abuse to which the State, by way of its justice- and prison system, has been and is subjecting Amir on a daily basis should stop. After all, Rabin’s blood was no redder than that of anyone else. Hence Amir should be treated like any other convicted murderer. And that should include the possibility of an early release. Which, in Israel, is usually granted after twenty years.  

Last not least, I believe that, in a certain way, the fact that people like Yigal (the name, incidentally, means “he who will redeem”) Amir exist is a blessing for society. And not just for Israeli society either. That is because, in a world where freedom of speech, the most elementary there is, is being increasingly limited day by day, he is one person who, amidst all his suffering, still has what it takes to be free and hold it up for the rest of us to see.