Fresh Air’s Terry Gross interviewed Dan Ephron, author of the new book called Killing A King, on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Assassin Yigal Amir’s brother Hagai served 17 years in prison for helping to plan the murder, and Ephron interviewed him.
GROSS: And when Hagai Amir emerged from prison, he was not exactly an outcast. He got a job really quickly. He went on Facebook and immediately got, like, 600 friends on Facebook.
EPHRON: This was something else that surprised me. I don’t want to exaggerate the scope of this, but I guess I anticipated that everywhere Hagai would go, you know, 17 years after the assassination, 20 years now after the assassination, that people would either shun him or worse or, you know, would call him names. And he said that the contrary was true. He said, you know, I’m sure that there are people who oppose what I did, but they don’t – they don’t approach me on the street. They don’t come up to me on the bus. But the opposite does happen, and it does happen with somewhat regularity. People come up to me and say, congratulations for getting out of prison, and I think what you did was brave. That surprised me.
The Amirs lead, I think, something akin to normal lives in Israel. And this was evident. Every time I visited them, it seemed like they were coming back – the family was coming back from some event, you know, a wedding of a friend or an outing at the beach. There was this kind of – and neighbors would come over and chit chat in that very normal way that, you know, neighbors talk to each other. All this was surprising to me because certainly in 1995 the event shocked Israelis. And it seemed to me that Amir would be – Amir and the family would be outcasts in Israel at the time and maybe forever going forward.
I frequently criticize Gross because she is so influential. This was an excellent interview. She twice referred to Israeli racism; Ephron was conveying the rightwing political culture that dominates Israeli society. Gross should get Max Blumenthal on there.
I don’t think that you criticize her because she is influential. I think you criticize her because of how she uses–and misuses–her influence.
The only reason why Gross talks about Israeli racism is because this was an intra-Jewish affair. A Labourite Zionist(which Gross identifies with) gets murdered by a Likudnik one. It also allows Gross to portray her side as the enlightened liberals, an opportunity her type of Zionists are never going to miss.
So, only Jews, labour Zionists get positive treatment; no Palestinians as usual. This is the only context Zionists are comfortable talking about Israeli racism. Jane Eisner of the Forward is the same.
So I can only laugh when I read:
I don’t think even you believe that.
Gross is surely a Zionist, but her admission about Israeli racism struck me as a first. She’s a power and if she’s taking baby steps good for her. We need these folks to abandon Zionism. Many will
But..but..Jews don’t celebrate or countenance terrorists in their midst and even shun them!
I will enjoy flinging this back at our local hasbarists.
The assassination of Rabin was one of the few where the assassins actually got what they wanted; An end to the idea of peace.
That the assassin’s helper/planner would be congratulated by people is incredible. Can you imagine the Yanks congratulating Oswald, or Booth? (had the first survived, of course. They hanged Booth, and those who helped plan the assassination of Lincoln, didn’t they?)