Rabin Conference challenged over official version

Attendees of Rabin Conference Will Be Met by Protestors
16:57 Nov 14, '05 / 12 Cheshvan 5766
By Baruch Gordon


The International Conference marking the 10th anniversary of Yitzchak Rabin's death convenes this week in Netanya. A protest against the official version of the assassination will also be held.


Dignitaries from around the world will attend the conference at the Netanya Academic College [pictured above]. They include James Wolfenson, Quartet Special Envoy for Disengagement and Former President of The World Bank; Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union; Foreign Ministers from Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, and Sweden; and representatives from the United States, Great Britain, Jordan, India, Austria, Egypt, France, and Greece.

Conference organizer MK Gen. (res.) Danny Yatom invited Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen and PA Prime Minister Abu Ala to deliver speeches. Representing Abu Mazen will be the PLO's Saeb Erekat.

Conference participants will be met by protestors who challenge the official government version of the events surrounding the Rabin assassination. Former Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar, who led the investigative commission into the assassination, told Israel Radio Monday morning that his probe was "very encompassing and very thorough."

But the protest organizers feel otherwise. Led by Barry Chamish, who authored the book "Who Killed Yitzchak Rabin," they are demanding the the investigation into the assassination be re-opened.

Though once widely ridiculed for his theories regarding the Rabin murder, Chamish is no longer alone. A Dahaf Institute poll commissioned by Israel's largest circulation paper, Yediot Acharonot, earlier this month revealed that no less than 25% of Israelis believe there was a conspiracy to murder Prime Minister Rabin.

In an interview with IDF Radio on Sunday, Yitzchak Rabin's daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pilosoph, said that the Shamgar Commission left many questions unanswered and that she was not satisfied with its results.

She first voiced her doubts four years after the assassination, in November, 1999, in that month's edition of the Hebrew-language Woman's World (Olam Ha-Isha) magazine. In an interview with Sarit Yishai-Levi, Rabin-Pilosoph speaks about questions she raised in conversations with her mother, Leah Rabin, immediately after the assassination: "Who shouted, 'These are blanks!'? Why didn't the Shamgar Commission determine who shouted that the shots fired were blank cartridges?"

She questions why her mother was driven away in a different car when Yitzchak Rabin was driven to the hospital. "Why," Rabin-Pilosoph asks, "did they tell her that it was an exercise?... Why didn't they kill the assassin?"

Rabin-Pilosoph speaks of Channel Two investigative reporter Matti Cohen, who shared with her significant findings regarding the assassination but whose report was never allowed to be shown to the public.

In the 1999 interview, Rabin-Pilosoph said that security agents complained to her that they were forbidden to testify about various matters connected to the events during the assassination and immediately afterwards.

In an interview later that day on Israel Radio, Rabin's son, Yuval, demanded that a re-investigation into the murder be opened. "I also have the same questions," he said, "[and more]... I don't think that we can and should give answers to the questions. My role is to raise the questions and to bring them back to the public agenda, this is my job..."

The protestors who accuse the Israeli government of lying about the Rabin assassination will be distributing a list of their own findings and unanswered questions including the following:


* We charge former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Meir Shamgar with gross judicial misconduct for changing the time of Rabin's murder from 9:30 to 9:50pm.
* We charge Yoram Rubin with perjury for testifying to the Shamgar Commission that Rabin was shot at 9:50. Yigal Amir was arrested at 9:30.
* We charge Rabin's driver, Menachem Damti, with perjury for testifying to the Shamgar Commission and at Amir's trial that he drove to Ichilov Hospital in less than two minutes. The ride actually took 22 minutes.
* We charge Rubin, Damti and Shamgar with conspiracy to alter evidence, by coordinating a new, later time of murder.
* We charge Eitan Haber of evidence-destruction based on his own testimony to the Shamgar Commission that he absconded with Rabin's possessions at Ichilov Hospital, while later admitting to Jerusalem newspaper Kol Ha'ir that on the same night he cleaned out Rabin's filing cabinets at the Prime Minister's office.
* We charge Menachem Damti with perjury for testifying to the Shamgar Commission that he was opening the door for Leah Rabin when he heard the first shot, and that he reacted by immediately jumping into the driver's seat, as he was trained to do. Leah Rabin was standing on the steps nowhere near her husband when Amir shot the blanks and Damti stayed outside after the shot.
* We charge Shimon Peres with gross misconduct and dereliction of public service. As prime minister, Peres approved the Shamgar Commission's conclusions that Rabin was shot twice in the back.
* We charge the pathologist Dr. Yehuda Hiss with medical malpractice and evidence tampering. While all other doctors including Gutman, Sneh and Barabash reported that Rabin's spine was shattered, causing death, Hiss removed the wound from Rabin's autopsy.
* We charge Avishai Raviv with perjury at his recent trial. Raviv testified that Amir never informed him of his murderous intent.
* We charge the chief judge at Yigal Amir's trial, Edmund Levy, with gross judicial misconduct for dismissing the testimony of police forensics expert Inspector Baruch Gladstein, who proved scientifically that Rabin was shot at point blank range, about half a meter closer than Amir ever got to Rabin. We charge that Levy acted with full knowledge and intent in this dismissal of evidence. Within the defense summation of attorney Jonathan Goldberg, there is more than enough proof that Judge Levy deliberately ignored and dismissed relevant evidence throughout the trial.


Protestors will meet at 9 am at Merkaz David at the corner of Deganya and Klauzner Streets in Netanya on both days of the conference. The demonstration will be ongoing from 9am to 8pm in the vicinity of the Netanya Academic College.