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AG: No Indication Yitzhak Rabin Killing Was Due To Incitement
2005-08-10
Haaretz Service
www.haaretz.com/hasen/ spages/610944.html
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz sparked furious debate Wednesday by saying that there was "no indication" that the 1995 assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had been sparked by incitement.
On the other hand, Mazuz told the Knesset State Control Committee, "what is certain is that there was a failure of security at the site of the murder."
Rabin was shot dead by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir in November 1995, at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Vehement opposition at the time to the prime minister's land for peace initiatives, in the form of the Oslo accords, was widely believed to have contributed to the assassination.
Mazuz warned that excessive use of laws against incitement could curb free speech. "The atmosphere within the public has an influence, but it must not be used as an excuse to shut people's mouths," he said.
According to Mazuz, prosecutors have refrained on principle from filing charges against people suspected of incitement. "We do not believe in enforcing the law [as a tool] to change the atmosphere of public life," he said.
"A skullcap does not confer immunity from observing the law," Mazuz continued, "But no one wants to link the words of one person and the acts of another."
"After the Rabin assassination indictments were filed over statements, and beyond the fact that most of them ended without result, this did not prevent the stormiest election campaign in the history of the state, and did not prevent the utterance of firece statements from all directions," Mazuz said.
The Peace Now organization reacted with anger to the attorney general's comments, stating that "The attorney general is himself paving the way for the next political assassination in Israel," Israel Radio reported.
Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis
