Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak pledged Thursday to work for peace as Israelis mourned former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on the five-year anniversary of his assassination, according to the Jewish calendar.
"Five years have passed and we have not forgotten Yitzhak ... We still try to know what he would say today, what he would do faced with the challenges and risks," Barak, visibly moved, said at a ceremony at Rabin's grave.
"Israel's peace and security are forever linked and we cannot tread on one or the other," he said.
"I swear that we will never forget you and that there shall never be a reprieve for your murderer," Barak said.
Other leading Israeli politicians, including President Moshe Katsav and Parliament Speaker Avraham Burg, also attended the ceremony at Rabin's grave on Jerusalem's Mount Hertzel.
The parliament scheduled a special session Thursday to discuss Rabin's spiritual legacy, while flags were flown at half-mast in front of all public buildings around the country.
High school students dressed in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, and younger students attended classes on the values of democracy.
Rabin, who as head of the military led Israel to victory over its Arab neighbors in the 1967 Six-Day War, signed the 1993 Oslo accords with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, opening up a decade of peace negotiations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Arafat and his successor Shimon Peres.
Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by Yigal Amir, a Jewish extremist who opposed any territorial concessions to the Palestinians.
Israeli television on Thursday replayed the reaction to Rabin's assassination of US President Bill Clinton, who, holding back tears in the White House Rose Garden, said in English and in Hebrew: "Goodbye, my friend."
Tens of thousands of Israelis already commemorated Rabin's death on Saturday, the five-year anniversary of the assassination in the Gregorian calendar. The Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, where Amir shot the prime minister with three bullets.
Inside Rabin's jacket was found a bloodied sheet of paper with the words of a pacifist hymn Rabin and others had just sung at a pro-peace rally.
Amir, jailed for life for the killing, said Monday that he would do it all over again.
"I don't regret a thing. I respected him, but I would kill him again because the left brought him to power to promote the peace process," said Amir, in his first remarks since his incarceration – JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
