20 years after Yitzhak Rabin's death, a gulf wider than ever

Michele Chabin | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Israelis gather in Tel Aviv to commemorate death of Rabin Israelis lit candles at the Yitzhak Rabin memorial in Tel Aviv on Monday to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the former prime minister's assassination by a rightwing Jewish extremist who hoped to derail the landmark 1993 Oslo Accords inked wit

JERUSALEM — The upcoming anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination 20 years ago by a Jewish extremist may also mark the death of Israel's peace movement.

Two decades later, Israel appears further away from the prospect for peace than ever. Quite a change from the time Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn with Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat in 1993 and signed the Oslo Peace Accords, giving Palestinians limited self-governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

Since then, Israel has moved to the right politically and no one is talking about an independent Palestinian state happening anytime soon. A small but vocal group of young Israeli extremists have built nearly 100 unauthorized settlement outposts and initiated confrontations with Palestinians.

And just this week, Hagai Amir, the brother of Rabin's assassin, was arrested in Tel Aviv for posting alleged threats to Israel's president on Facebook.

Rabin, a hawkish general-turned prime minister, was gunned down in Tel Aviv on Nov. 4, 1995, during a pro-peace rally in what's now called Rabin Square. He was 73. A ceremony to honor him will be held there Saturday night, and guests will include former president Bill Clinton, who brokered that handshake with Arafat.

Although peace talks have continued since Rabin was slain, “there was no one in Israel with Rabin's combination of political will, the political clout, defense credentials and the courage to stand up to all the opponents of peace,” Ephraim Sneh, a former government minister and close confidant of Rabin, told USA TODAY.

Rabin’s daughter, Dalia, said this week, “There is no peace process. We are facing terrorism. Blood is being shed again. I have no other country, and my country has changed.”

Five years after Rabin was killed, Palestinians launched the Second Intifada, or uprising, and a third one may be unfolding with the near-daily series of stabbings and clashes across Israel and the West Bank since mid-September. In the past decade, Israel fought a war with Lebanon and three wars with Hamas militants that rule Gaza.

Relations between Israelis and Palestinians have deteriorated to the point where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that negotiating an interim peace deal with Israel would be futile.

Abbas also repeated threats he made in September at the U.N. General Assembly that Palestinians are no longer bound by the Oslo accords if Israel does not honor its commitments.

Speaking at a Rabin memorial this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there is no peace because the Palestinians “are not prepared to recognize the nation-state of the Jewish people. They are not prepared to end the conflict once and for all."

Whether Israelis and Palestinians would have achieved peace if Rabin had lived “is an agonizing question,” said Arie Kacowicz, a Hebrew University political scientist. “It's clear something very deep died with him."

Kacowicz said that from 1993, when the Oslo accords were signed, until the assassination two years later, “Rabin and Arafat had developed a real working relationship. Arafat trusted Rabin, and the kind of cooperation they achieved was never replicated, not by Shimon Peres and not by Benjamin Netanyahu,” Rabin's immediate successors.

Yariv Oppenheimer, general director of Peace Now, a left-wing Israeli advocacy group, said, "Within the peace camp, the assassination created an unspoken fear that if you supported a two-state solution and confronted the right wing, you could pay with your life."

Oppenheimer said that fear allowed the radical right to grow bolder and establish more settlements.

Even today, he said, “Netanyahu incites the public's fears to gain political power. During this last election (in March), he told his constituents, 'The left wing is bringing the Arabs to vote in buses' in order to get the right wing to get out and vote.”

Moshe Arens, a former minister of defense, believes there can be no peace with the Palestinians “until they become a functioning entity with the authority and capability to sign and enforce a peace agreement.” He said even if Abbas did sign a peace treaty, “it would soon be rejected by other Palestinians, including Hamas.”

Kacowicz agreed that the prospects for peace are extremely slim right now.

“There is an almost complete loss of hope in finding a political solution in the foreseeable future, but I personally believe we shouldn't give up hope," he said. "Conflicts are not earthquakes. Eventually they can be resolved.”