Years of turning the annual memorial for Yitzchak Rabin into a left-wing rally have taken their toll. Lack of interest forces its cancellation this year.
The annual memorial has drawn increasing criticism the past few years as left-wing Israelis took over the annual rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, where he was murdered in 1995. With the support of Rabin’s daughter Dalia, they have tried to promote accepting Palestinian Authority demands as part of the “Rabin Heritage,” ignoring the former Prime Minister’s opposition to dividing Jerusalem.
The memorial day expanded into a full week of rallies, but decreasing interest reached new lows last year with an embarrassingly small turnout. The Right was made to feel that it had no place at the increasingly political rallies and therefore stayed home.
Dalia Rabin, director of the Yitzchak Rabin Center, said that lack of interest and lack of funds convinced her to cancel this year’s planned ceremony in November.
"Standing before an empty square would not bring respect to me or my father," she told IDF Radio. "We felt that after 15 years, we had exhausted this style event and it was time for a new format."
Rabin was a decorated soldier and IDF Chief of Staff before becoming Prime Minister, but the memorial rallies have become a forum for promoting accepting Palestinian Authority demands that Israel surrender United Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Jewish Leadership movement, responded to the news of the cancellation by saying that “the only legacy Rabin left was the Oslo Accords, from which the public received a painful wake-up call."