The "violence" referred to was that of the Jewish settlers who have clashed with the Israeli Army and threatened public figures.
The assassin was a 27-year-old observant Jew, a member of an ultra-nationalist settlers' group that is overtly training its members for paramilitary actions.
Such groups have supporters in the U.S., Britain and other Western countries. All of them condemn Rabin's peace process with the Palestinians, under which most of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967 are supposed to be put under the rule of a Palestinian National Authority.
Rabin became notorious among settlers for shaking hands and signing agreements with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat, who is condemned by the settlers as a "bloody-handed terrorist."
In the opinion of most Israelis, the blood on their own country's hands somehow doesn't count. Israel's long and violent presence in southern Lebanon is overlooked, as are the frequent atrocities committed on the West Bank by the army and settlers. It shows that the difference between "defense" and "aggression" is determined by the subjective analysis of the participant.
Zionism pretends to be a secular or even humanist ideology devoted to the liberation of the "world Jewish people." If that were really so, its role would have come to an end with the establishment of the nation-state of Israel in 1948. However, the Zionist state is more than that. It is an expansionist, colonialist entity-even now, with the "peace process" taking place.
In death, Rabin has apparently become an all-nations' beloved and quasi-mythical "peace hero." But one should bear in mind that as prime minister this same Rabin had used all possible tricks in order to delay most of the important components of the peace agreements, while only partially implementing the others. The rule now being transferred to the Palestinians is over a land of patches. Left outside Palestinian aegis are the Jewish settlements in the territories. Indeed, in order to insure their safety, additional lands are being confiscated from Palestinians for the purpose of building "detour roads" around Arab-populated locales.
Rabin was assassinated because, in the view of certain rabbis, "conceding the Land of Israel to the gentiles makes the man a traitor" whose fate is "obvious." A significant number of observant and non-observant Israeli Jews agreed with this sentiment.
On the other end of the spectrum, peace activists in Israel continue to demand the liberation of all remaining parts of the territories and the establishment of a (miniature) nation-state of Palestine, alongside Israel, in the whole of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. They criticize the Israeli government for hesitation and delay.
At the same time, the settlers and their supporters fear that some form of a Palestinian state will grow out of the Palestinian National Authority, however small and patched its territory may be. The settlers object, of course, to being evacuated from the occupied lands, but they would like to remove the Palestinian Arab population from Israel proper as well as from the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, that has been Zionism's life-long desire.
Until 1975, the PLO strove for a united Palestine "in which Muslims, Jews and Christians would live in equality." This was not good enough for the Jews because this formula related only to their religious affiliation; for most Jews, being Jewish also means being a citizen of a nation. The PLO's change of policy in 1975 was aimed at "establishing a state in every liberated part of Palestine." The PLO conceded even more in its 1993 Declaration of Principles, calling only for "autonomy."
Today, the state of Israel is not only a nation, but one that practices a specific Zionist-Jewish kind of apartheid. It systematically discriminates against its Palestinian Arab "fully equal citizens," especially against the Bedouin (desert dwellers) of the Naqab-Negev, whose land rights are being denied along with their ability to practice their traditional livelihood. And Israel is now about to establish in the occupied lands minuscule isolated "bantustans" within larger territories that will in reality be controlled by Israel.
Having lived for the last 500 years under the yoke of foreigners, the Palestinians are quite nationalistic in their rebellion against occupation. But if Zionism were to be abandoned by the Israeli Jews, then the Palestinians' nationalism would return to its ecological origins, and the Israeli-Palestine conflict could end in the establishment of a Humanists Residents Federation of the orient-Mediterranean seacoast.
This would be a decentralized, border-less, non-violent area, of which Syria and Lebanon, Jordan and even the Sinai Peninsula and could become part. Each particular community, no matter how small, could enjoy full autonomy without a dominator over it. Religion and culture would become private issues of concern to individuals and voluntary groups.
Toma Sik is the World Service Authority coordinator of District Five.