A Different Feeling

November 5, 2006 - 7:14 PM by

Yael attended the memorial for slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin both last year and this year — and observed the differences:

I feel conflicted in many ways over how the rally in Rabin’s memory was handled this year. On the one hand, I really felt that the emphasis on Rabin, on his aims and his accomplishments, on what he sought to accomplish but was unable to attain because a murderer walked among us, on the hope and work for peace –that all this was diluted and really shunted aside. Certainly the feeling in the crowd was much different this year. Last year I watched as people hugged one another, reached out to complete strangers and took their hands, embraced them, and cried throughout the rally. But last year along with the sadness and the memory there was also a sense of strong hope. Everyone seemed to feel that steps toward peace were happening, that the vision that Rabin held was tangibly in reach. There was a sense of unity and direction, we were moving forward. We’d just successfully pulled out of Gaza and it seemed…

Well, obviously, those hopes, dreams, and expectations proved to be bitter illusions.

There were many in the crowd protesting against Olmert and Peretz. There were others waving signs saying stop the actions in Gaza and passing out flyers. I observed a number of occasions where the flyer’s were rebuffed in my own immediate area. One girl replied crisply, “Tell the Palestinians to stop launching rockets at us. My family lives in Sederot.” Another shook his head and commented, “A year ago I’d have taken it gladly. No, no thanks.”

There was no sense of unity this year. There was no sense of hope.

Tags: • Category: A New Reality 

Comments

One Comment on A Different Feeling

  1. David on Mon, Nov 6th 2006 4:04 AM

    2. Hope rests on illusion. It was the rejection of logic and the embrace of a subjective reality that many Israelis embraced as possible.

    The Pied Piper was Rabin. It was he and others that brought us Oslo and the return of Arafat from Tunis and the arming of the Arabs.

    It is a tragedy that he was assassinated of course and once again religion was to blame.

    So by all means remember and commerate Rabin but those who do so with resentment for the right and the belief [for that is all it ever was] that peace was lost after being so near at hand, continue their delusion. Gaza showed further just how wrong Rabin and subsequently Sharon was.

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