This week we marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Tomorrow, Saturday, we will meet at the square, like every year.. Former President Bill Clinton will also come, just like he did 20 years ago.
Time passes quickly, but memories do not fade. But above all, the meaning of the murder becomes clearer year by year. The great journey to reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians has stopped. Who can tell the story of the peace that was not achieved like these days, filled with terror?.
On Memorial Day itself, we went to the graves of Isaac and Leah, and afterwards the Knesset plenary session convened. Even there, it was difficult to cover up the deep chasm that had opened up between the right and the left since the murder. The strong speech by the party's chairman, Isaac Herzog, was met with unacceptable cries of protest from the coalition benches. Not only is there no reconciliation between us and the Palestinians, but there is also no reconciliation between ourselves.
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Recently, I was asked, on behalf of the November 4th class, to tell, along with others, where I was that evening. Here is what I wrote at their request:
""We were at a movie. Saturday night in Jerusalem, what else can you do? We went to a movie, Rivka and I. This movie theater no longer exists, I think, like many other things. Symbolic. In the middle, the pager started to vibrate. There were still pagers back then, over and over and over. Something was wrong, I told myself. At the time, I was the chairman of Channel 2's news company and the CEO of the Second Authority, but mostly, I remained a journalist. You can't take that away from me.
I went out to the cinema lobby and read. Assassination of the Prime Minister. Injured. Hospital. I went back into the cinema and pulled Rivka. That's it, I said, no more movie. Now it's reality. I ran to the beer studios, from where we broadcast the news and joined the energetic and shocked group of News 2. Shalom Kittal was hosting the broadcast.
I took one personal minute for myself. For me, Rabin was not only a prime minister, but also a special boss. I served as his communications advisor when he returned to the Defense Ministry in 1984, replacing Moshe Arens. It was a special experience, professional and personal. I got to know him, the loyal activists around him, and I knew the family well, for generations. Everything floated and emerged during the ongoing broadcast.
The news came gradually. Sad. I called Moti Kirshenbaum, the CEO of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He too is no longer with us.
I proposed a big clan bonfire, a union between Channel 1 and Channel 2. He refused. Each in his own way, he said. We nevertheless united Keshet, Reshet and Elad into one broadcasting body. The broadcasters, program presenters and production teams united. This was Israel's clan bonfire, around which most of the public gathered that night and onwards to share the pain, the sorrow, the astonishment and the broken dream.
Where were you when they assassinated Rabin, when they assassinated Hashamol? In a movie. A horror movie.
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