Was former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's path - symbolized in the 1993 Oslo Accords - correct, or rather the path of former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, who pushed to have Arab residents transferred out of the Jewish state?
That question is being posed in a "national referendum," held on Monday at Tel Aviv's Central Station and at Jerusalem's Central Station on Tuesday by the Otzma Yehudit movement, associated with the Otzma Leyisrael party that just fell short in the last elections.
The referendum will be held at central areas nationwide over the next two weeks with vote boxes and literature explaining the positions of both leaders, both of whom were assassinated in the early 1990s - Rabin by a Jewish extremist over the Oslo Accords, and Rabbi Kahane by an Arab terrorist in New York.
Nationalist activist Baruch Marzel, who in the past was an aide to Rabbi Kahane, told Arutz Sheva "today, after 24 years, we are initiating a referendum that aims to prove that more people think that Rabbi Kahane was right than that Rabin was right. I invite members of the left also to take part in the referendum."
"The treatment of Rabbi Kahane in the establishment and the Israeli media has been characterized by tyranny and silencing voices," said former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, himself a student of the rabbi.
Ben-Ari added "the referendum is a loyal expression of democracy, in which the people will decide the path they choose for their existence and future. Results of the referendum will be published; we are holding a fair and true referendum."
You decide - who was right?
Rabin's key quotes over the years are presented in the literature with the following examples:
"They've promised us Katyusha (rockets - ed.) from Gaza. It's already a year that the Gaza Strip is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), there hasn't been another Katyusha and there won't be a Katyusha."
"(Then-PA Chairman Yasser) Arafat will make order there (in Judea and Samaria), without the Supreme Court and B'Tselem. The Palestinians will have responsibility to manage their lives, and Israel will have increased security authority - I emphasize that - for the security of Israelis and the war on terror. That is to say, at any time IDF forces and branches of the security forces will be able to enter any place in that area."
Rabbi Kahane's quotes in the literature included the following statements:
"We will be witnesses to an escalation of terror, to strengthened wars of attrition, and to extortion and concessions by the governments of Israel that are gripped by fear. We will be subjected to the horror of the threat of rockets aimed at the hearts of our cities, to the loss of our irreplaceable loved ones, and to the pressure of our 'ally' (US - ed.)."
"Every concession will bring world pressure for more concessions. Every withdrawal will leave in its footprints depression, a feeling of defeat and tragedy. The urge to leave Israel and to run away from the palpable and approaching Holocaust will grow."
"Ishmael (the Arabs - ed.) will increase and multiply until they become the majority in areas of Israel; Ishmael will continue harass the daughters of Israel; Ishmael will continue to throw rocks at Jews and their cars and shout 'Jews out.' Ishmael will increase the terror and the bombs, and the danger to the lives of Jews in their independent country will worsen."