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And on the 5th Year...
Netty C. Gross
 A FAMILY MOURNS: As the Oslo Accords come under attack in the wake of the present conflict, many of those devoted to Rabin's heritage are worried |
Some said it was the bad weather. Others, the �situation.� But the plush Jerusalem bus heading out in the rain to Herzliyah, for the late October national symposium for educators in preparation for the fifth-anniversary observances of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, had only four occupants: a retired bookkeeping teacher, who said he was shopping around for a wife for his son; a nervous, retired teacher and her husband, originally from Argentina; and this reporter. The symposium was organized jointly by the Rabin Center for Israel Studies, created in 1997 by the Knesset to memorialize the late prime minister and teach democracy, and the Education Ministry.
At the conference itself, at the Kibbutz Shefayim convention center, the situation was better, but not much. Stacks of center-produced Rabin educational material on sale � booklets, films and workbooks � arrayed against a backdrop that included Rabin�s oversize portrait amid bouquets of white flowers, went largely untouched. And inside the auditorium, where the blue-and-white bannered stage was also graced with a portrait of Rabin set amid flowers (this time sprays of yellow and orange pompons and gladiolas), most of the seats were empty. Last year 550 educators packed the hall and organizers were prepared this time for a similar number of participants. Yet only 120 showed up.
With Yitzhak Rabin�s fifth yahrzeit coming on the heels of unprecedented violence and a seeming breakdown of the peace process so identified with his life and death, some educators at the conference wondered quietly whether the late prime minister�s political legacy is not the latest casualty of the October war between the Israelis and Palestinians. One principal, asking that his name not be published, speculated that his students, and their parents, still reeling from events, might not be up to a heavy diet of Rabin memorials this year. �In recent years Yitzhak Rabin was mourned even by those who didn�t agree with his politics. Now?� he shrugged. �The whole thing may be a much harder sell. There�s so much gloom already. A lot of people are angry and hurting. Kids repeat what they hear at home. I�m anticipating some tough questions.�
Center officials say they are braced for the questions and even more � the possibility that as the memorial day rolls around on November 11 (which coincides with the Hebrew date on November 4, 1995, Heshvan 13), there may be renewed public debate about the wisdom of the Oslo Accords. But these events, they stress, have absolutely no effect on the mission of the Rabin Center, where work is described as going full steam ahead. With over half the money already raised, construction of the Moshe Safdie-designed center�s $40-million, 40-dunam Ramat Aviv campus � the land was donated by the Israel Electric Corporation, which relocated one of its installations from the site � is about to commence. Educators, assure officials, continue to call. During the worst of October�s rioting inside Israel, points out Danny Gal, who runs educational programs at the center, 50 schools took up the center�s emergency offer to dispatch teams of Jewish and Arab teachers to lecture students. And while center officials say the violence has caught them off guard, like everyone else, they are coping.
�Everyone knew that reconciliation with the Palestinians would have its ups and downs,� center chairman Prof. Zehev Tadmor told The Report. �Currently we are in a bad period, and that�s because Yasser Arafat has made a major mistake. But the Oslo Accords were not created from thin air. It was a process that started with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at Camp David. Yitzhak Rabin took the process forward. And despite what�s going on today, he was not wrong in signing the accords. The time was correct; the set-up was correct. One direct consequence was the peace treaty with Jordan, an immeasurable achievement.�
But for safe measure, Neal Levy, director of international development at a private foundation set up to raise funds for the center�s construction, quickly points out that his organization is not confined to promoting the Israel-Palestinian peace process, as is the rival Peres Center for Peace � the two institutions are said to compete over the same U.S., European and Israeli donors. �We have a much broader mission,� says Levy, noting that the Rabin Center, when completed, will include a museum and archive documenting Rabin�s life, research and educational units that study and promote democracy, tolerance and inter-ethnic dialogue, among other projects. The decision to diversify the center�s mission � for instance, one conference symposium was entitled �Multiculturalism in an Era of Decisions�� may prove particularly wise.
IN LATE OCTOBER, SENSING that her slain husband�s political heritage was under threat, Leah Rabin sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Barak urging him, �out of loyalty to Yitzhak�s legacy,� to turn to Shimon Peres for help in reactivating talks with Arafat. Her instincts are on target. If the mood at the educators symposium is a barometer, it appears that the new political realities have left many devoted to Rabin�s memory worried, confused and, perhaps anticipating a public reassessment of the late prime minister�s political ideas, frustrated. Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the slain prime minister�s daughter, echoed the sense of frustration. A Center Party member of Knesset, she was left with the task of defending her father�s political legacy, which she acknowledged is under attack.
�In spite of the murder of the man, his vision did not die,� she told the audience. �We�ve continued to talk peace. However, the worst thing in my opinion is that the heavy question mark hovering over his legacy had emerged from our camp, the camp of the moderates, who feel, today, embarrassed.� Rabin-Pelossof urged the moderates to remain in the frame. Her father, she declared, �was neither a right- nor left-wing extremist. I am appealing to you today to be strong and to promote this message. Let us see better days.�
The Rabin Center is said to be, in large part, the brainchild of Leah, who envisioned a U.S.-style presidential library and museum plus a living memorial � in the form of a sophisticated, computerized educational center � to her husband. It aroused its share of controversy from its very inception. Though the Rabin family decided from the onset that the center would be erected with private funds, there was public criticism from a variety of sources who objected to the grandiosity of the project. In a country where large memorials to individual leaders are rare � there is, by comparison, a modest memorial to David Ben-Gurion in the Negev Kibbutz Sdeh Boker� critics argued that the Rabin Center smacked of a personality cult, a feature which, according to media reports, especially rankles former Soviet immigrants.
The army was initially reluctant to surrender to the center its extensive Rabin-related archival material; officials at the Ramat Aviv Beit Hapalmah museum, which commemorates the contribution of the pre-state Palmah military unit and is located a short distance from the new center, were angered when Leah Rabin, insisting that her husband�s multi-faceted life warranted its own museum, refused to allow them to re-name their facility after him.
There were also complaints that given the plethora of non-profit educational groups that promote coexistence, the Rabin Center�s educational work was redundant. To say nothing of right-wing suspicions that continue to linger, despite the center�s creation during the Netanyahu era. (At the symposium, one closet right-wing Education Ministry employee pointed to a center-produced workbook that contains what it considers to be negative examples of politically charged newspaper cartoons from the Rabin-Oslo years. �Given what�s going on today, I don�t see anything wrong with these,� the employee whispered.)
Tadmor brushes off these hurdles. The army, he says, �has been very amenable to handing material over.� And he denies that he and his colleagues are contributing to the creation of a personality cult around Rabin. �We are doing no such thing. The museum will document Yitzhak Rabin�s life, yes, but through the prism of this country�s history because he, in many ways, symbolized the Israeli ideal.� Similarly, Tadmor insists that he cannot think of a single non-profit �that does the sort of educational work that we do.�
Nor does money seem to be a problem. With fundraising assists from U.S. President Bill Clinton � in March 1999, a gala event in Rabin�s memory for contributors and others was held at the White House � and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl � who reportedly arranged for a $5-million German government contribution � the center, which currently employs 39 part-time staffers, is ploughing forward.
Indeed even before it has a permanent home, the center is a beehive of activity, asserts Tadmor, endowing fellowships, sponsoring school competitions (200 schools participated in this year�s contest), running conferences and co-sponsoring book publications on subjects related, in one way or another, to the Rabin assassination. For example, last year�s conference commemoration of Rabin�s 78th birthday studied the tensions between freedom of speech and propaganda and incitement.
And last January some 3,000 high school students (1,200 Israeli Jews, 600 Israeli Arabs and 1,200 Palestinians) responded to an as yet unpublished Rabin Center survey, entitled �Between Conflict and Peace,� which sought to investigate what the different groups of teens knew of each other�s national histories. The students were asked to respond to concepts such as the Balfour Declaration, the Holocaust, the War of Independence, the 1948 Palestinian refugees, Deir Yassin, the Intifada, the Oslo Accords, and Rabin�s assassination.
In today�s climate, some of the newly doubting Israelis might find it hard to grapple with such a questionnaire. Tadmor shrugs. �Everything,� he admits, �is painful today. Everyone is supersensitive. But after all the dust settles, we will have to continue the dialogue with the Palestinians. And between ourselves.� When that day comes, says Tadmor, the Rabin Center will be ready. �There�s no other choice,� he says. �Remember what happened on November 4, 1995?�
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