The tragic assassination of Yitzhak Rabin did not signal the end of the State of Israel. Articles continue to be written. Movies and plays are still produced. Politicians still lie. People go to work. Thugs cover up memorial notices on Rabin. Daily routine has returned.
The first ritual of mourning was spontaneous, intense, and quite natural. Young people wore miserable, depressed expressions. The lights came on and they took center stage. But no sooner had the show begun, than it was over. Israeli society swallowed its tears and dismissed its sadness as one waves smoke away from one’s eyes.
Later, we spoke of trauma, of a national split, of a lost country. We spoke of missing our father, of the fears of the morning after, of the huge abyss that opened up under our feet. We spoke of how it wasn’t possible to go on in the violent political atmosphere that preceded and led to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. But we have proven that perhaps we weren’t ready to deal with what was wrong, that perhaps we are too hard-hearted to learn.
One year has passed since the assassination and we have buried the trauma as we have buried countless previous traumas and can probably bury countless future traumas.We stopped just short of the abyss, only to retrace our footsteps and start over again from where we began. And the abyss still awaits us. We have not held those who incited to violence accountable. We did not excommunicate those who rejoiced openly at the slaying of our premier. We have not grown more humane from our experience, nor have we prevented the next potential assassination. Wounds, by nature, heal, but the scars remain the heritage of those who were really close to the fallen.
The maelstrom caught us unprepared and left us confused. But out of our confusion came clarity. We hastened to unveil new signs for schools, hospitals, colleges, residential neighborhoods and roads, and, of course, one municipal square, all bearing our late premier’s name and immortalizing his memory.
Memory is like a blip in a chip. The chip is so sophisticated that a mere touch is enough to evoke a memory within us, to elicit a nostalgic sentence, a reflection on pain - a touch of humanity. And this chip is so effective it will not allow us more than just a peek into this latent Pandora’s box inside ourselves. We’ll deal with things tomorrow, we say abruptly. Today we’re in a bit of a hurry.
If we were to search for a commonality which truly unites us, we would find that it is the art of remembering and repressing. These complementary opposites
both enable us to remember a little and to repress what is burdensome. Burdensome for those who did not do enough to prevent the assassination in the months and years before, painful for those who tried and did not succeed. Bothersome for everyone else.
At first, memory consumes us with its power. Ultimately, however, it dulls the pain, blurs and categorizes past events. Repression is a bottomless barrel which always has room for another event, another tragedy. We, who grew up in Israel, learned to put things in the barrel because the show must always go on, because life is short.
There is something hopeless, sad and frightening about our attempt to heal from Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. We are not interested in exploring the origins
of violence in our fragmented society, in removing from its midst a cold-blooded assassin. Ours is a confused, bewildered society that has lost its ability for dialogue. It is a fat, satiated society, proud of its bulging paunch. It proved it can produce villainous deeds the likes of Rabin’s assassination. Somehow, self-flagellation for the assassination, as bitter and honest as it was, has been replaced by self-justification. The passive nonchalance of Israeli society made those who were silent, those who stood by while the tragedy unfolded in the months and years before, partners in the crime.
The smiling assassin may or may not live out his life in prison. Israel celebrates 60 years of statehood in the year 2008, the same year Yigal Amir may be released. Only twelve years in jail. The Prime Minister will not be opposed to his release. The head of the General Security Services will give the nod. The State President will sign the pardon, express displeasure, but sign the pardon.