ROBERT S. WISTRICH
221
first century it may well contain over fifty percent of the world Jewish
population. This is a phenomenal transformation achieved under demo–
cratic rule (flawed though it has often been for its Arab citizens) in
conditions of siege and continuous warfare during the last half a century.
Such achievements are easy to overlook in the atmosphere of fashionable
cynicism, frustration, debunking, and self-denigration that has seized
many Israelis.
The two bullets that took the life of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Prime
Minister, war hero, and symbol of the 1948 Palmach generation, cast an
oblique but revealing light on the evolving national trends. In a sense, the
tragedy of Rabin's assassination has (perhaps temporarily) reversed the
unbridled attacks on Israel's founding myths or put them in a new per–
spective. Following the murder, there was a sudden idealization - even
mythification - of Israel's leader who only a short time before had been
savagely criticized. He had been accused of being indecisive, uncommu–
nicative, insensitive, and lacking in empathy for the Israeli public, even as
he pursued policies that were irreversibly affecting the country's future .
After the assassination, Rabin appeared in a new guise as the wise, caring,
bold leader - unhesitating in his search for peace. To the thousands ofIs–
raeli youths holding vigils and lighting candles at Tel Aviv's Kikar
Malchei Yisrael (now Itzhak Rabin Square), he was the "victim of peace"
covered with the halo of martyrdom. (The reading from the Torah the
week of the murder was, amazingly, the "Binding ofIsaac.")
The euphoric rally at which he had sung the "Song of Peace" just
moments before his death added a tragic poignancy and contributed to
the subsequent sanctification of Rabin. The
gruff,
plain-speaking soldier,
known in Israel as "Mr. Security," had never seemed at such peace with
himself The shock of the killing was all the greater since he had fallen at
the hands of a fellow Israeli Jew, a Sabra like himself, who had gunned
him down at point-blank range. His murderer, a young law student from
Bar-Ilan, a product of the explosive Middle Eastern cocktail of intense
nationalism and religious fundamentalism, saw in Rabin a "traitor" to his
integralist vision of the Land of Israel. A Jewish Israeli mirror-image of
the Hamas or Islamic Jihad, Yigal Amir seemed light years away from
Rabin's secularist values. Yet he, too, represents a facet of the polarized
political culture of Israel and cannot be so easily dismissed as a mere ab–
erration.
It remains to be seen whether the death of Rabin - the last living link
to the generation of 1948 - will lead to a more mature, tolerant concept
of political discourse in Israel. The immediate beneficiary is Rabin's part–
ner in the peace process and long-standing rival, Shimon Peres, who is
likely to win handsomely in the coming Israeli elections. If so, Yigal Arnir
