Tens of Thousands Gather in Tel Aviv to Mark 30 Years Since Rabin Assassination By The Media Line Staff Tens of thousands of Israelis filled Rabin Square on Saturday night to mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with speakers warning that the forces that spawned his murder persist in […]
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The Media Line: Tens of Thousands Gather in Tel Aviv to Mark 30 Years Since Rabin Assassination
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Tens of Thousands Gather in Tel Aviv to Mark 30 Years Since Rabin Assassination
By The Media Line Staff
Tens of thousands of Israelis filled Rabin Square on Saturday night to mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with speakers warning that the forces that spawned his murder persist in Israeli politics today.
Organizers said more than 80,000 people attended the memorial; some estimates put the crowd as high as 150,000, spilling well beyond the plaza named for Rabin, who was shot in the square on Nov. 4, 1995. The rally combined remembrance, calls for national unity and renewed appeals over the fate of hostages seized in Gaza.
“A man was killed; it falls to us to keep his idea alive,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said, criticizing what he called a distortion of Judaism into a doctrine of violence and hatred and saying those currents are represented in today’s government. Lapid also declared that “Yigal Amir is not Judaism,” and that neither extremist rhetoric nor violent racism reflect Jewish values.
Speakers ranged across the political center and left. Yair Golan, the head of the Democrats party, tied the three shots that killed Rabin to present-day “incitement and extremist nationalism” and said their echo can be heard in acts he described as undermining democracy. He urged a “renewed moral and democratic backbone” and rejected unity based on abandoning democratic principles.
Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, now a Knesset member, said Rabin’s killing was the product of polarization and incitement and called for a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack. “The fighters have done and are doing their duty; now we must do ours,” he said, urging passage of universal conscription.
Former hostage Gadi Mozes, who spent more than a year in captivity in Gaza, delivered an emotional appeal invoking Rabin’s sense of responsibility. “If Yitzhak Rabin were prime minister today, no one would have been left behind,” Mozes said, adding that Rabin would not rest until all hostages were brought home.
Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni framed the rally as a fight for democracy. “Thirty years ago they tried to murder democracy with three bullets,” she said, warning that recent legislation and moves against gatekeepers threaten democratic norms.