Yitzhak Rabin assassination - do you remember / know?

[Huwipulotu]

In 1995 Yitzhak Rabin - the Israeli prime minister - was assassinated by an Israeli terrorist - Yigal Amir - who was opposed to the monumental peace efforts that Rabin had made with the Palestinians. He had worked with Arafat to sign the Oslo peace accords.

Rabin was an inspirational Israeli who risked so much (and paid the ultimate price) to find a peaceful solution only to be killed by an Israeli terrorist.

most of the Palestinian people want peace, most of the Israelis want peace, but in BOTH sides there are violent men who are only focused on the destruction of the other side.

The terrorist acts or not just from one side.

It’s not as simple or black and white as this op. Hamas have stated their aim to destroy Israel, no negotiations, no compromise. There has never been a peace initiative from hamas. Hamas run Gaza, they are the government. They treat the pope, like shit and use the money from aid to line their own pockets. Money that is supposed to go to build schools and hospitals etc for the people. Is it really in hamas interests to have peace. The top brass of hamas will lose an awful lot of power and money if there is peace. Gaza relies heavily on israel, many Palestinians live and work in Israel.
considering these current events many Israelis may be thinking that the Oslo accords were a mistake and allowed hamas to flourish. Apparently Arafat was a politician of a small poor state yet died a billionaire. What does that tell you.

People not pope, didn’t mean to bring the pope into it all fgs

i did t mention Hamas. I just pointed out that Rabin was murdered by an Israeli who didn’t want any form of peace with Palestinians.

there is very deep hatred on both sides. That needs to be recognised

and the Oslo accords were never put in place so not sure why Israelis feel they have lost out. The land grab from Palestinians has continued unabated since the Reagan era.

Israel was created to divert European guilt for its antisemitism and role in the Holocaust. The just thing to do would be to create a Palestinian state in the birthplace of Arthur Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration or in Germany.

Not sure you can possibly be serious. Balfour was born in Scotland. The Palestinians would not want a homeland state in Scotland or Germany- it would have no religious or cultural significance at all.

The “creation” of the Isreal state was an absolute bin fire and done from a colonial mindset. Ie “we can take this bit of land and the people already living there are irrelevant”.

But the current population aren’t to blame for that.

There is no way really to undo what was done back then, but blowing each other to shit and oppressing a population really isn’t the answer either.

I think this will drag on for decades to come.

I know, but there seems no way out of this mess.

Wrong. The State of Israel was created by the Israelis. What Europeans "created" Israel? Perhaps you mean that winning the vote for partition in the UN in 1947 was due to guilt? Or maybe, jsut perhaps, an understanding that Jews needed their own national home after being left at the mercy of the world to endure the horrors of the holocaust (the British even turned desperate refugees away from Palestine).

But why the UN vote result was as it was is a moot point since anyway the arabs didn't accept partition of Palestine with a state for Jews and a state for them. They wanted it all and to throw the Jews into the sea (their words, not mine). When the State of Israel was declared after the British left (and they really did just up and leave) by....the now Israelis, not the British....five Arab countries immediately invaded (Iraq, Lebanon, jordan, Egypt and Syria). And they lost. Hence the State of Israel remained.

No it wasn't. Not at all.

My own family, who moved to Palestine in the middle of the 19th century during Ottoman rule, were ethnically cleansed from Hebron.

How is taht colonial? Do tell....

Before the creation of the State of Israel, under Ottoman and British rule, all land was legally purchased from the landowners. They couldn't be colonial since they were living under someone else's Empires. It makes absolutely no sense. To have a colony, you have to exert control.

When the British were leaving when there was a nasty civil war and then after the establishment of the State of Israel during the war, yes, there was the nakba and massive displacement. That's a tragedy for the Palestinian people. But it's still not colonialism.

I think you need to read up on what colonialism is and isn't. It's a word bandied about to sound cool but is meaningless int he context of pre-1967 Israel.

I was in Israel at that time. Just a little context, Hamas at the time was blowing up buses to stop the peace process moving ahead. Any Israeli alive then remembers. It was horrific. And then, of course, even that limping peace process was totally thrown out the window by Arafat launching the second initfada.

I think that this post is incredibly bad taste when over 600 israelis have been murdered by Hamas terrorists.

@Meshigenus

I was in Israel at that time. Just a little context, Hamas at the time was blowing up buses to stop the peace process moving ahead. Any Israeli alive then remembers. It was horrific. And then, of course, even that limping peace process was totally thrown out the window by Arafat launching the second initfada

It does feel like a lot of people are bringing this up to imply that it's Israeli's who have been unable to agree on peace, which is simply not true. Like you say, at that time terrorist attacks were rife. People should read some of the things Arafat was saying and doing :( They have factually rejected every peace agreement put to them.

I think that this post is incredibly bad taste when over 600 israelis have been murdered by Hamas terrorists

Agree. It smacks of "if only Israelis wanted peace". Which is rewriting history to a fairly worrying degree.

I think you need to read up on the concept of 'settler colonialism'.
As long as Zionists are unable to recognise the cataclysmic effects of al-Nakba and try to take some responsibility for the devastation of Palestinian lives there will - sadly - never be peace. But then most Israelis and Zionist were only ever interested in quiet, i.e. keeping Palestinians firmly locked up in the open-air jails of Gaza and the West Bank.

Yeah, and I was in Palestine at the time. It was a period of continued Israeli military occupation, random arrests, and illegal detention of Palestinian civilians living under draconian military rule. What we are currently witnessing is the uprising of people who have pitifully little to lose. Israelis have their own policy of continued military domination to thank for this whole mess. Every people have a right to self determination however inconvenient for the occupier

I do remember. It was bonfire night. It felt in the 90s as though this and all conflicts could be solved eventually. I’m not sure now.

I have read and that's why I know it's just hyperbole. It could apply to the post-1967 settlements where there is a civillian population moving into an occupied area and exerting control over the other population. But it certainly does not apply to Israel outside of the West Bank. And there are no settlers in Gaza at all. They all left and we saw what has happened since. Is this a glimpse of the future if we leave the WB?

Perhaps Palestinians need to take take some responsibility for the cataclysmic mistakes they have made. I fully accept that the creation of the State of Israel was a disaster for the Palestinians but in1947/48, with the refusal of the Arabs to accept partition and the presence a Jewsih political entity and homeland, it had reached an "us or them" sitution. And I'm glad it was us because we've seen exactly what would have hapenned if it had been "them".

Prior to the second intifada, Palestinians moved freely in Israel. They worked in israel, they drove their cars into Israel. So they weren't "locked up". the restrictions on movement to Israel began following the terrorirst attacks, especially during the second intifada.

But since Palestinian statehood and not the destruction of Israel is the goal (apparently), why was no State of Palestine ever established in WB and Gaza prior to 1967?

Of course, we all know that the answer is that a) Palestinian statehood had never been the goal previously, Palestine was a terriroty and not a national entity and even if the Arabs had won in 1948, Palestine would have been carved up between the Arab countries, and b) the goal was destruction of Israel and they still believed it was possible.

It's easy to say throw away tersm 'Oh, all Israelis are interested in is......" but that just shows that you dont' actually know Israelis or Israeli society and you're only interested in soundbites, like 'settler-colonialism'

If you were really in Palestine at the time, you would have seen that there was a peace process. The establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the withdrawal of Israeli Civil Administration from wide areas of Palestinian territories. There was a process. It was far from perfect but there were channels and there was a pathway to peace. The Palestinians had a just cause for self determination and if they would have stuck to the peace process, I am confident that they would be in a very different place now compared to the very sad reality of what's going to happen. They could have turned Gaza into a showcase of what would happen if that had their own state. But they voted in Hamas, a violent terrorist gang with zero respect for any civil liberties. You can legitimately point fingers at Israel (and I do) but Palestine has fucked things up too and made massive massive mistakes throughout the last century.

Let's just think how many hospitals and bomb shelters could have been built with the money used just now to plan and attack Israeli civillians. What would have benefitted the Palestinains more?

Yes, I was studying in Palestine at the time. Why on earth would I lie about that?
I lived through the assassination of Rabin fearing Israeli reprisals in the Palestinian village where I stayed until it became clear that the assassin was indeed a Zionist fanatic.
That same year, I witnessed the Israeli occupying forces withdraw from Palestinian cities only to surround those very same cities, controlling who were allowed in and out. Palestinian towns where effectively turned into ghettos.
Every single day, I and my Palestinian classmates had to cross an armed Israeli military checkpoint simply to be able to attend classes at the local university. And close to 90 percent of the male university students had experienced random arrests and detainment in Israeli military prison without due process. So much for Israel being a democracy!
Despite the deeply flawed Oslo 'peace' process, the Israeli occupation has just continued on and on and on.
Unless the Israeli people begin to take responsibility for the evil crimes they have and continue to commit in order to preserve their apartheid ethnonationalist settler state there never will be peace.
But as I wrote before, it is my impression that the Israelis never really wanted peace. They merely wanted the Palestinians to be quiet. Clearly, that's not really working, and people on both sides of the conflict are paying a terrible price. #freepalestine

@snygghygge

If you don’t mind may I ask if you think Palestinians would be willing to come back tot he table to discuss a 2 state solution? Neither the Palestinians or the Israelies are going anywhere. Would it not be in the interest of everyone in the region to try to broker a genuine peace and then just leave each other alone? Blockades come down but secure borders .Because the impression I get is that Hamas will not stop and I’m not sure that will serve Gazan’s well.

I have stayed well away from Palestine for a long time and I can't speak for the Palestinians. What I can say is that many, many Palestinians do not agree at all with Hamas' methods and objectives.
I sincerely hope that a peaceful solution will be found - Palestinians AND Israelis deserve to live in peace with dignity.
Sadly, the occupation has lasted more than 60 - sixty!!! - years, so I'm not very hopeful. These are very dark days indeed

@snygghygge
When you start with the rehearsed soundbites "evil crimes" "setller-colonial ethnostate" rubbish, I know that there is no interest in a balanced understanding of both sides. Because there are plenty of "evil crimes" having been committed by the Plaestinians. My own grandparents were ethnically cleansed from Hebron in 1929, others were massacred.

I absolutely think it is wrong for Israel to control the West Bank (and this despite my grandparents coming from Hebron), even with the PA controlling much of the population. I would have preferred the settlements there never have been built and recognise them as an obstacle to any two state solution.

But:

1. there is no occupation of Gaza. It has a border with Egypt so Israel isn't surrounding it. Each and every last settler and soldier were evacuated in Gaza. And rather than show Israel that Palestinians were capable of creating a peaceful state, they VOTED in a terrorist gang. If elections were held tomorrow in the WB, polls show Hamas would win. So while many Palestinians don't support Hamas, most do.
2. If there is a peace process, however, flawed and you don't like the terms, the answer is not blowing up buses or starting a 2nd intifada. Terrorism has precipitated disaster for the Palestinians each and every time. Before the 2nd intifada, they would move freely to work in Israel, look at the situation now. I think the Palestinian cause and desire for self-determination is just and right. But Palestinians, not just Israelis, are leading to it being ever so further away from realisation. Palestinians are not some hapless victims but are also agents able to make decisiosn which affect the trajectory of change. And I assure that no good will come to them from the slaughter and kidnap of children and the elderly over the past few days (quite ironic when you talk about "paying for evil crimes")

What makes you think you can police my language?
This conversation is pointless. More than sixty years have passed and Palestinians are STILL living in camps in historic Palestine and in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
The stark truth is that Israelis will NEVER ever be able to live in peace UNLESS they own up to the war crimes committed in the name of Zionism.
You clearly have no interest in a just peace - you just want to quiet the Palestinians.
I have nothing further to add to you on this dark day.

I detest terrorists. They only cause problems and are not interested in a solution. I do not care what country,or religion terrorists they come from. They kill innocent people.

@snygghygge your posts read very much like victim blaming and support of terrorism. Whatever the history, whatever side you believe, hamas' actions over the last few days have been violent terrorist acts.

Believe me, I'm no friend of Hamas and I do NOT condone their behaviour in any way, shape or form!
I do also know that had the Israelis REALLY wanted peace they wouldn't keep re-electing Netanyahu as PM. That is not victim-blaming, but speaking uncomfortable truths against power.

This. I utterly deplore and condemn the actions of Hamas but anyone who believes Netanyahu sincerely wants peace is utterly deluded.