How unfortunate that the annual memorial for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who dedicated his life to defending the State of Israel, should become a circus for political opportunists and a stage for venomous attacks against the current Israeli leadership – despite the claim by the rally’s organizers that it would be non-partisan.

Friday marked the 20th anniversary of the shocking murder of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the hands of a deranged extremist. Tens of thousands of Israelis paid tribute to the peace-seeking military figure in Tel Aviv Saturday night.

The event each year, however, is marred by insinuations by the Left that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was somehow responsible for the heinous crime. Indeed, the divisions within Israeli society become increasingly sharp with each false allegation against the current prime minister by political leaders who use the tragic murder of a great statesman to promote their own interests.

In fact, while accusing Netanyahu of incitement to murder, his political opponents continue to promote a peace deal with the Palestinian leadership, which – through cultural activities, entertainment and schooling – truly incites Arabs, from childhood on, to murder Jews. This, however, is never mentioned at the Rabin memorials.

“As is the case every year, the Left used the anniversary of Rabin’s murder to accuse the Right of responsibility both for Rabin’s assassination and for the failure of the peace process with the PLO,” Caroline Glick, managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, affirmed in a column last week. “Rather than learning from his record, the Left has spent the last 20 years distorting his record,” she wrote.

“The Left’s claim that Yigal Amir killed not only Rabin but the chance of peace rests on the assumption that unlike the five men who have served as prime minister since Rabin was killed, Rabin would have reached a final accord with Yasser Arafat if he had lived to finish his term in office,” she explains, stating that the PLO was never truly interested in peace.

Rabin Considered Canceling Oslo Talks

“In an interview on the 15th anniversary of her father’s murder, Dalia Rabin explained that her father was on the verge of canceling the deal and turning back the clock,” Glick continues. “In her words, ‘People who were close to my father told me that on the eve of his assassination he considered ending the Oslo process. He wasn’t a blind man who sprinted forward.’”

Popular Israeli personalities and foreign leaders interested in pursuing the moribund two-state solution also use the annual occasion to try convincing Israelis to adopt the land-for-peace conviction and make a deal with the Palestinian Authority, notwithstanding the current wave of terror, Palestinian incitement to violence, the failed attempts by former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, and – most strikingly – the rise of the Islamic State and other radical terrorist groups throughout the region and even around the globe.

“Peace is necessary if both sides are willing to make compromises and take risks for the only real solution – two states for two peoples,” US President Barack Obama said in a pre-recorded video.

Clinton’s Message Offensive to Israelis

Former US President Bill Clinton made headlines at the Saturday night rally, where he seemed to imply that peace could be achieved if only the Israelis would give it a chance.

Former US President Bill Clinton urges Israelis to make a peace deal with the Palestinians. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

“After all the fighting and battles he engaged in, he [Rabin] never stopped seeing other people, including his adversaries, as human beings,” Clinton said. “All of you must decide… how to finish his legacy, for the last chapter must be written by the people he gave his life to save and to nourish… You have to decide that the risks for peace are not as severe as the risks of walking away from it.”

In other words, according to Clinton, whether or not there will be peace with our neighbors is totally up to us. His message was offensive to many Israelis, who suffer terror attacks on a daily basis and have repeatedly invited the Palestinians to the negotiating table with no preconditions.

Yet it seems the majority of Israelis have not fallen for the demagoguery, as seen in the most recent national election, where Netanyahu claimed a decisive victory despite attempts by foreign sources to achieve the exact opposite.

By: Atara Beck, Senior Writer, United with Israel