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Yitzchak Rabin’s final Knesset speech before the assassination was discussed in a recent Israel National News commentary piece penned by Hillel Fendel.
In the run-up to the 12th Yahrtzeit of Rabin’s murder, Fendel writes;
Left-wing spokesmen continue to refer to the widespread right-wing protests against Rabin’s policies prior to the murder as “incitement to violence.
Fendel then writes further down in the piece;
However, a speech Rabin delivered in the Knesset in October 1995, in which he opposed the formation of a Palestinian state – a stance he repeated on several occasions – was not released. In that speech, Rabin also spoke of his vision for a united Jerusalem: “These are some of the changes that we see and want in the final status agreement: First and foremost, a united Jerusalem, including Maaleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev, as Israel’s capital… a security border for Israel’s protection in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest sense of this term… the inclusion of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar [south of Jerusalem] and other communities.”
At last year’s memorial session in the Knesset, Prime Minister Olmert quoted a passage from the above speech by Rabin: “There are not two Jerusalems. There is only one Jerusalem. As far as we are concerned, Jerusalem is not a matter for compromise.”
Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who also quoted the above passages in a Knesset speech in memory of Rabin in 2003, added that Rabin’s wife Leah told him on her deathbed, “with her last remaining strengths, ‘Arik, isn’t it true that Yitzchak would never, ever have ceded in Jerusalem?’ Knowing Yitzchak Rabin for many years, even with our differences regarding Oslo, I answered Leah, ‘I am certain he would never have ceded in Jerusalem.’ This was our last talk; two days later, she passed away.”
Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA (Independent Media Research and Analysis) writes the following;
So you are in the Foreign Ministry and you and all your pals support withdrawal and the assertion that a sovereign Palestinian state is a fantastic idea. And you are putting together a website to memorialize Yitzhak Rabin and want to include on the website urls linking to “Key Speeches by Yitzhak Rabin”.
One problem: the last policy speech that Rabin made opposed a Palestinian state. It even mentioned Gush Katif as an example of holding onto settlements.
Now, the speech is available on the website of the Foreign Ministry.
But do you share this with your audience or keep it safely buried on the website?
The Zionist Organization of America has publicized on their website that this important speech has, in fact, been omitted from the Foreign Ministry’s Yitzchak Rabin Memorial site. (ZOA inadvertently placed the link to the speech under word “memorial” — they have been notified by email by this author to fix the error.) MB