Thirty years after the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, an estimated 150,000 people in Tel Aviv paid tribute to the former prime minister late Saturday, according to Israeli media reports.

“Those were different times, when leaders still took responsibility – in words and deeds. Responsibility – that is exactly what Israel longs for today,” said former chief of general staff Gadi Eisenkot to the applause of the participants in Tel Aviv’s central Rabin Square.

He was alluding to criticism levelled by many Israelis at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who denies responsibility for any mistakes in connection with the massacre led by Palestinian militant organisation Hamas on October 7, 2023.

A Jewish fanatic shot Mr Rabin dead on November 4, 1995, after a peace rally to prevent concessions to the Palestinians.

The murder was preceded by right-wing Israeli extremist incitement against the prime minister.

“Thirty years ago, at the terrible height of an unrestrained smear campaign, Yitzhak Rabin was walking down the stairs when a despicable assassin fired three bullets, murdering the prime minister and destroying the peace process,” the organisers of the commemoration said, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid expressed similar sentiments, saying, “The three bullets that were fired here in the square were not only meant to kill a leader, but to extinguish an idea.”

The Oslo peace process, with the Palestinians in 1993, was already in crisis before the assassination.

Nevertheless, Mr Rabin’s death marked a decisive turning point that severely damaged the Oslo peace process politically.

The two-state solution sought by Mr Rabin is now considered difficult to realise and is rejected by Mr Netanyahu.

Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly been accused of contributing to the political climate that made the attack more likely.

One month before the assassination, for example, he spoke at a demonstration in Jerusalem where protesters held up posters depicting Rabin in a Nazi uniform.

“Rabin’s assassination was the direct result of polarisation and incitement,” said Mr Eisenkot.

In a TV interview shortly before Mr Rabin’s assassination, the current far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, showed an emblem broken off the prime minister’s official limousine and threatened: “We can reach Rabin.” 

(dpa/NAN)