As Israel marks 30 years since the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the nation is ready to unite and place political division aside, Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of former hostage Romi, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The murder of Rabin “touches all parts of the nation. It doesn’t belong to anyone in particular,” Gonen said.
Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by a right-wing extremist at a rally in Tel Aviv, sparking deep divides between Israel’s Right and Left.
Gonen will be participating in the Wednesday rally at 5 p.m., marking 30 years since Rabin’s assassination. It will take place at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl, aiming to promote unity between the different sectors within Israel, regardless of what political views they hold.
The rally was initiated by the youth movement Remember the Murder, Fight for Democracy, with the participation of Dror-Israel, HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, and Bnei Akiva, among others.
“The event is about standing together; it represents one of the hardest things a nation can experience: the murder of its leader,” Gonen told the Post when speaking about why she chose to participate in the event. “And that’s why to come and stand in such a place, which isn’t meant to discuss specific policies but to reflect the pain of the entire nation – that’s the right place to be on such a day.”
“It’s not the time to talk about policy, whether we should pursue one direction or another, but rather to pause and feel the nation’s pain and look at the future that the entire people want to move toward,” Gonen continued.
Gonen’s daughter Romi was held captive for 471 days in Hamas captivity and released by the terror group as part of the January hostage-ceasefire deal.
Gonen told the Post that the country could learn about the potential for unity from the battle to return the hostages, one of the most controversial issues throughout Israel’s war with Hamas.
“I think the struggle for the [return of the] hostages – that’s exactly the place where the people wanted to show all the different sides,” Gonen explained.
“Everyone had a different view on how to bring them back, and that’s exactly where we can learn the lesson to listen to different opinions and perspectives, understanding that they reflect different realities in this country.
“To allow for a more complex dialogue, and also to insist that when we make changes within our country, they should be done with broad agreement.
“And as for different opinions, I think only very fearful people would murder another person to achieve their goal.”
'We’re a nation that wants to work together'
“We’re no longer there,” Gonen emphasized. “We’re a nation that wants to work together.”
“We’re a very strong nation, and we need to remember that when we make decisions,” she added.
Nitzan Rosnok-Ziv, secretary-general of HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, underscored ahead of the rally at Mount Herzl that “the memory of the [Rabin] assassination must not belong to any one group or tribe.”
“The memorial day for Rabin’s assassination must be a national day on which different groups can jointly commemorate and learn the lesson of that terrible murder,” Rosnok-Ziv said.
“Even in the harshest disagreements, no one may raise a hand against the rules of democracy.”
The youth groups stated that the rally aims to emphasize the responsibility of the younger generation to mend social rifts, restore respectful dialogue and moral discourse, and learn to manage disagreements through listening and mutual respect.