454
PARTISAN REVIEW
roads in Israel's history from 1948 on: he was chief of staff in the 1967
War, and as Prime Minister since 1992, he embarked on the brave but
highly risky path of returning those very territories whose conquest he
had masterminded twenty-five years earlier. Mr. Rabin also represented
the last major link with what is commonly called in Israel the Palmach
generation - the architects and driving force of Israel's war of independ–
ence. More than any other leading Israeli politician on the left, he
incarnated the rough-hewn, plain-speaking Sabra. This was often seen in
Israel as a mark of his personal integrity and lack of guile, which I think is
largely accurate. But Rabin's bluntness did not favor the development of
an internal Jewish dialogue or consensus on issues that go to the heart of
Israel's existence, its
raison d'etre
and its future.
This flaw was one of the more unfortunate aspects of his incumbency
as prime minister. Rabin was a remarkable soldier-politician in many
ways, but not a man ideally suited to act as a bridge between those sec–
tions of the Israeli public that were increasingly drifting apart. I am
thinking in particular of the sense of alienation that developed among the
Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria, and what can be broadly called the
religious right. Their sense of anxiety and marginalization grew increas–
ingly acute in light of the radical policies that have been pursued since
1992. Undoubtedly, they were taken aback by the disdainful attitudes ap–
parent in Mr. Rabin's own abrasive language towards them.
Beyond their immediate day-to-day security concerns, he appeared to
be uninterested in generating the kind of dialogue with the settlers that
Israel had engaged in with the PLO. In tum, this produced a feeling
among the settlers that they were somehow a "foreign body" within the
Jewish state. Moreover, they were consistently stigmatized as obstacles to
peace by the Israeli media as well as prominent ministers and officials. On
the other side, the Israeli right was equally guilty of intemperate language,
of unfounded aspersions on the patriotism of government leaders and of
organizing disruptive demonstrations that heated up the political debate to
dangerous levels of incitement.
Rabin's assassin was probably influenced by this general climate even
if he acted alone and out of religious conviction. Yigal Amir is as good an
example as any Muslim fanatic of how explosive the
mix
of fundamental–
ist faith and integral nationalism can become when it is divorced from
humanist values and respect for the democratic rights of those with whom
one disagrees. In Arnir's world-view, any renunciation of territory by Is–
rael was an act of betrayal; both Rabin and Peres were literally destroying
the future of the country - thwarting the god-given redemption of Israel
through the acquisition and occupation of the whole land of Israel. Such
actions meant that they both deserved death. Many people in Israel and
