OccupationalHazard.org 11.02.01

Oslo & Beyond - 11/02/01

He's not to blame that no
Joshua has inherited his mantle

Meron Benvenisti - Ha'aretz

Commemorations on the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination did not rise to become a purifying occasion that departs from the routine squabbles of the living trying to enlist the dead man in their cause. Peace Now declares that only its members are "the true heir of Rabin's path," and Arik Sharon, mourning the deceased in his own way, won't be with them because he, and his ilk, "deny Rabin's political legacy." The right wing points to the murdered leader as proof of the justice of their cause: Who says Oslo is Rabin's "true" legacy? The liberation of Jerusalem and his wars against the Arabs are what sum up his life.
The murder of a prince is often perceived through a historical lens as the event that signifies his life and legacy. But that perception, no matter how understandable, gives the murderer the last word about the meaning of the victim's life. No doubt, the murderer who pulled the trigger and the victim in his last moments knew best - and they alone - why the assassination happened and what it meant. One believed that he was acting under divine orders to prevent the homeland being turned over to Amalek. His bullets felled a man who knew that his life was ending because he gathered up the courage to be the founding father of a new era.
Of course, the murderer and his victim did not live in a vacuum and both represent complex historic forces that led to the fatal rendez-vous. But that meeting was not inevitable, and if Yitzhak Rabin were with us today, he would probably reject the view that his murder was the climax of his life and that the motives of a fundamentalist chauvinist assassin turned him into a "victim on the altar of peace," a casualty of the "cold civil war." He would also wave of his hand in that well-known gesture of disregard when hearing of the attempt to wrap his memory in the argument over "Oslo and its results." The code word - "Oslo" - is the shibboleth that defines the "peace camp," which believes peace is within reach, and the right, which regards the establishment of the Palestinian Authority "and giving guns" to a terrorist organization headed by Arafat are the reasons for the current national disaster.
Yitzhak Rabin's "Oslo" was complicated and full of contradictions. It was an heroic attempt by a man who with his own hands had plucked the rotten fruit of the occupied territories and then tried to throw it away. But he also used the advantage of Israeli force, which he spent his whole life nurturing, to establish a framework for indirect control over the territories which left the occupation in place. He may have established a system for dialogue with Yasser Arafat that made them partners in the management of an ongoing crisis, but he also avoided creating facts - like evacuating the Hebron settlers - that would make the Oslo process irreversible. The Oslo maps he signed were more similar to Sharon's plan for Palestinian cantons than to the Peace Now map, and it remains unclear whether he would have backed Ehud Barak's concessions.
Therefore, the question as to whether Rabin's Oslo agreements were destructive because he "conceded" too much or too little will never be answered. Indeed, in general, there's no connection between the memory of Yitzhak Rabin or his action and the situation five years after his death. He left a double heritage - first, belief that only a gradual, incremental process would lead to conciliation and peace, and second, that mutual recognition of the legitimacy of two national movements fighting over the same homeland is the only ideological foundation on which to build a peace process.
Those who followed him betrayed that double legacy. Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon disavowed both, and Ehud Barak sought to hasten the end, and was punished. None of them can hide behind Rabin's broad back, and the memory of the murdered leader does not need to be a ball fought over in a political court.
Yitzhak Rabin continued a mission and loyally fulfilled the plan set down by the founding fathers. That loyalty is what gave him the authority to redefine the basic concept of Zionism and to evolve from being an heir himself to a founder of a new Israel. He was destined to be left standing on his own Mt. Nebo viewing a promised land to which he would never arrive. He is not to blame that no Joshua has arisen to inherit his mantle.

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He's not to blame that no Joshua has inherited his mantle
Meron Benvenisti - Ha'aretz





Commemorations on the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination did not rise to become a purifying occasion that departs from the routine squabbles of the living trying to enlist the dead man in their cause. Peace Now declares that only its members are "the true heir of Rabin's path," and Arik Sharon, mourning the deceased in his own way, won't be with them because he, and his ilk, "deny Rabin's political legacy." The right wing points to the murdered leader as proof of the justice of their cause: Who says Oslo is Rabin's "true" legacy? The liberation of Jerusalem and his wars against the Arabs are what sum up his life. The murder of a prince is often perceived through a historical lens as the event that signifies his life and legacy. But that perception, no matter how understandable, gives the murderer the last word about the meaning of the victim's life. No doubt, the murderer who pulled the trigger and the victim in his last moments knew best - and they alone - why the assassination happened and what it meant. One believed that he was acting under divine orders to prevent the homeland being turned over to Amalek. His bullets felled a man who knew that his life was ending because he gathered up the courage to be the founding father of a new era. Of course, the murderer and his victim did not live in a vacuum and both represent complex historic forces that led to the fatal rendez-vous. But that meeting was not inevitable, and if Yitzhak Rabin were with us today, he would probably reject the view that his murder was the climax of his life and that the motives of a fundamentalist chauvinist assassin turned him into a "victim on the altar of peace," a casualty of the "cold civil war." He would also wave of his hand in that well-known gesture of disregard when hearing of the attempt to wrap his memory in the argument over "Oslo and its results." The code word - "Oslo" - is the shibboleth that defines the "peace camp," which believes peace is within reach, and the right, which regards the establishment of the Palestinian Authority "and giving guns" to a terrorist organization headed by Arafat are the reasons for the current national disaster. Yitzhak Rabin's "Oslo" was complicated and full of contradictions. It was an heroic attempt by a man who with his own hands had plucked the rotten fruit of the occupied territories and then tried to throw it away. But he also used the advantage of Israeli force, which he spent his whole life nurturing, to establish a framework for indirect control over the territories which left the occupation in place. He may have established a system for dialogue with Yasser Arafat that made them partners in the management of an ongoing crisis, but he also avoided creating facts - like evacuating the Hebron settlers - that would make the Oslo process irreversible. The Oslo maps he signed were more similar to Sharon's plan for Palestinian cantons than to the Peace Now map, and it remains unclear whether he would have backed Ehud Barak's concessions. Therefore, the question as to whether Rabin's Oslo agreements were destructive because he "conceded" too much or too little will never be answered. Indeed, in general, there's no connection between the memory of Yitzhak Rabin or his action and the situation five years after his death. He left a double heritage - first, belief that only a gradual, incremental process would lead to conciliation and peace, and second, that mutual recognition of the legitimacy of two national movements fighting over the same homeland is the only ideological foundation on which to build a peace process. Those who followed him betrayed that double legacy. Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon disavowed both, and Ehud Barak sought to hasten the end, and was punished. None of them can hide behind Rabin's broad back, and the memory of the murdered leader does not need to be a ball fought over in a political court. Yitzhak Rabin continued a mission and loyally fulfilled the plan set down by the founding fathers. That loyalty is what gave him the authority to redefine the basic concept of Zionism and to evolve from being an heir himself to a founder of a new Israel. He was destined to be left standing on his own Mt. Nebo viewing a promised land to which he would never arrive. He is not to blame that no Joshua has arisen to inherit his mantle.
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