Tamir made the comments in response to a poll published in the Yediot Acharonot daily showing that a third of Israelis would be willing to see Yigal Amir, the man convicted of killing Rabin, pardoned.
Tamir told the newspaper that because of the poll, increased observance of Rabin’s memorial day is needed, especially in the nation’s schools.
“In my eyes, this day has the same importance as Independence Day and Holocaust Day, which incidentally some schools do not mark either,” she said. In recent years, some teachers and schools have refused to teach the state-distributed curriculum on Rabin Day. The material has been said to have a strong left-wing bent, blaming the right-wing camp in general for Rabin's murder, and emphasizing "the Rabin legacy" of support for the Oslo Accords and subsequent land-for-peace deals.
The Dahaf poll, carried out by pollster Mina Tzemach, has been carried out each year, prior to the memorial day, setting the stage for public discourse on its results. This year's poll showed 5% of Israelis in favor of granting Amir immediate clemency and another 25% saying he should be pardoned after 25 years.
Nearly 70% said they opposed granting Amir a pardon altogether, down from 76% last year. Interestingly, the number of Israelis who say they question the official version of the assassination alltogether continues to rise.
The "Yitzchak Rabin Memorial Day Law" was enacted in 1997, requiring all schools to hold commemorations for the former prime minister and signer of the Oslo Accords.
“I’m worried that despite all the memorial activities each year, the message that this murder is different because it's political is something that hasn’t sunk in,” Tamir said. She threatens to take action against those schools that continue to decline the government-sanctioned lessons on Rabin’s legacy.
“I don’t want to say in advance that I will penalize, but I would certainly want to know which schools did not hold memorial events and I would like to ask the principals why they chose [not] to do that,” she said.
Also responding to the Yediot poll, Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer has issued a call to all candidates in Israel’s upcoming presidential race to promise that they will not offer Amir clemency. “A murderer is a murderer, but all murderers are not equal. Yigal Amir did not just murder Rabin, the man, but also Israeli democracy. Granting him clemency would pave the way for the next political assassination,” Oppenheimer said.
Last year, on the anniversary of Rabin's death, then-Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin addressed the trend toward advocating a specific political ideology on the memorial day. "Yes, Rabin was murdered because of his political path, because of Oslo," he said. "But in the same breath we must add that this does not grant extra ethical weight to his political stances, with which many great people differed and continue to differ even today..."
"I believe that no political murder can sanctify a political stance," Rivlin said. "I believe that even the abominable political murder of Yitzchak Rabin cannot turn people like myself, who continue to believe in that which they believed before the murder, into lepers, or into partners in any measure of guilt..."