Israel recalls PM's assassination
( 2002-10-17 11:24 ) (7 )

Israelis paused Wednesday to mark seven years since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was shot by an extremist Israeli opponent of the policy of compromise with the Palestinians.

At a ceremony marking the beginning of the memorial day, President Moshe Katsav said, "The worst thing possible happened," referring to the assassination. "We have to learn the lesson well, commit it to memory," he said.

But the signs of internal division and extremism were evident even as Israelis lit memorial candles at the Tel Aviv square where Rabin was gunned down after a peace rally on Nov. 4, 1995. Israel marks the date according to the Jewish calendar.

Bumper stickers calling for putting the Israeli architects of the interim peace accords in the Palestinians on trial are a common sight. Activists from the Religious Action Center of the Reform Jewish movement gathered in a square in downtown Jerusalem to remove graffiti that read, "Death penalty to traitors, Shimon Peres is next in line." Peres was Rabin's foreign minister and a driving force behind the interim peace accord with the Palestinians.

On Wednesday the Israeli parliament debated whether to declare that the peace process with the Palestinians, which began with secret talks in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, is dead. The Oslo process brought about the creation of the Palestinian Authority, headed by Arafat.

Peres, again serving as foreign minister, declared that President Bush's prescription for solving the conflict through creation of a Palestinian state living peacefully with Israel is an "extension of the Oslo agreement."