Organizers for the annual memorial of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin have invited President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to address the crowd, a reversal of last year's policy to ban politicians from turning the event into a political ceremony. Barak is head of the Labor party and President Peres recently was elected to succeed Moshe Katzav after having lost to him five years ago when he was Labor party chairman.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Likud minister Natan Sharansky have addressed the memorial ceremony in the past but were not invited this year.