President Rivlin: Rabin Assassin Will Not Go Free on My Watch
Reuven Rivlin Image by getty images
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin will not be freed from jail on his watch.
“As long as I am president of Israel, his murderer will not be freed,” Rivlin said of Yigal Amir, a right-wing nationalist who has been jailed since he murdered the prime minister 20 years ago at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. “Curse my hand if it should ever sign a pardon for that evil man.
“We must ensure that the day upon which we remember Rabin’s murder will be a day belonging to all Israel; all its camps, all its sectors, a day of self-examination for the Israeli people, a time of self-examination for Israeli democracy,” he said Sunday evening during the annual memorial ceremony at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.
Members of the Rabin family attended the event, the first in a week of commemorations of the fallen prime minister. Students from the Yitzhak Rabin School in Ashdod helped Rivlin light a memorial candle.
“Twenty years since the murder, and we must ask ourselves: Did we do enough to repair the cracks opened by the murderer?” Rivlin asked. “Are we doing enough to imprint into the consciousness of this nation, for generations to come, again and again, the destructive potential of political violence?”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
