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Israelis Have Not Learned Lesson of Rabin's Murder:President
Israeli President Moshe Katsav said Monday that his countrymen have not learned the lesson of the assassination of late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin six years ago.
Speaking on Israel Radio, Katsav said that some politicians must understand that extremist declarations can lead to murder and bring destruction to the state.
The president reiterated that no pardon will ever be granted to Yigal Amir, a far-rightist Israeli Jew who gunned down Rabin on November 4, 1995 at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Israel is to hold a state ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the assassination of Rabin Monday afternoon at his grave at the military cemetery of Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem and in the Knesset (Parliament).
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Rabin's bitter Labor party rival before the two joined forces in peacemaking with the Palestinians, said on Monday that ultra-rightists in Israel were engaging in the same incitement that had preceded the 1995 killing.
"It's the same incitement, it's the same people, it's the same blindness of people, the same lack of all sense of proportion and responsibility to the state," Peres told Israel Radio.
Peres was referring to recent verbal attacks on him by rightists, who charged that he has fostered terror by continuing to hold out hope of negotiations with the Palestinians led by Palestinian National Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
Rabin, Peres and Arafat were granted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for the Oslo peace process, which has been greatly challenged by the Palestinian-Israeli bloody conflicts over the past year.
The week-long memorial events began Sunday night with a ceremony at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. Without mentioning Yigal Amir by name, Katsav declared that there would be "no absolution and no pardon" for the killer of the former prime minister.
"The murder of a prime minister by a Jew, with the intention to foil a political move, is the type of action that can destroy the state," Katsav said, adding "Israeli society is still tortured, pained and fragile. Our lives are not as they were."
"We'll continue to remember; and we won't forget, nor forgive," the president said.
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