WI Rabin hadn't been assassinated?

On Nov. 4, 1995, Rabin was shot by Amir in Tel Aviv and was DOA. WI he'd lived? Effects on the peace process, Israeli politics? He would either have to step down soon or fight against Bibi in the next election.
 
What bothers me about assassinations, apart from the murders themselves, is the utter preventability in most cases. IC: what would the effects be on Israel and ME in general?
 
Neither extremist in either side (Ariel Sharon and the Hamas faction respectively) would have come to power, and many ugly situations like the israeli invasion to Lebanon and the razing of Gaza would have been avoided . The assassination of Rabin was a textbook political murder intended to perpetuate the cycle of violence in Palestine .
 
Ariel Sharon an extremist? IMO, what he did was in '05-6 was a profile in political courage, somewhat like Nixon in China. Exchanging ideological fantasies for realpolitik geopolitical realities. With few exceptions (UBL, Hitler, Stalin, Mao) most pols are shades of grey, not black or white IMO.
 
As far as I can tell, the Israeli political system don't leave much room for a single politician to make bold moves. The main source of power is the Kneset (and the people who elect the people in the Kneset).

A politician need to make a coalition to get into power and if his supporters dislike his actions, they withdraw their support and the politician loses his power.

Killing a politician don't change the base that the politician depend on. In fact, it might even give the base a martyr.
 
On Nov. 4, 1995, Rabin was shot by Amir in Tel Aviv and was DOA. WI he'd lived? Effects on the peace process, Israeli politics? He would either have to step down soon or fight against Bibi in the next election.

Peace in the ME with a seperate Palestinian state. If he lives most of Israel doesn't get pissed and the cycle of violence will suffer a huge bump and possibly break. does the Assiantion never happen? or is it thwarted?
 
Actually, the political climate prior to the assassination resembles the South on Nov. 21-22, 1963. Denunciations of Rabin as a traitor by not just the loony fringe, but even hardliner Likudniks. At one Likud rally where Bibi (then Opposition Leader) spoke, there were posters of Rabin in a SS uniform and others with him in rifle crosshairs. Some radical Haredis put a biblical curse on him, and a whole bunch of other things. The Oslo Accords were ratified 67-63, with a two-vote margin of victory, and there was much rancour in the Knesset as well.

This was not the first time: when BG negotiatied war reparations and arms deals with West Germany in the 50s, Begin nearly started a civil war (massive rioting near the Knesset) and accused BG of selling out the 6 million Holocaust victims. After the assassination, everyone stepped back from the brink, but his death was a very high price to pay to break the cycle.
 
Ariel Sharon an extremist? IMO, what he did was in '05-6 was a profile in political courage, somewhat like Nixon in China. Exchanging ideological fantasies for realpolitik geopolitical realities. With few exceptions (UBL, Hitler, Stalin, Mao) most pols are shades of grey, not black or white IMO.

Replace extremist with radical if the former offends your sensiblities . However, the assassination of Rabin DID kill the peace process, or at least destroy its momentum at the time . And by the way , Sharon , being among the chief proponents of the Israeli invasion on Lebanon (one of the biggest geopolitcal blunders and the reason why Hezbollah exists today) does not make for statesman material in any case .
 
Replace extremist with radical if the former offends your sensiblities . However, the assassination of Rabin DID kill the peace process, or at least destroy its momentum at the time . And by the way , Sharon , being among the chief proponents of the Israeli invasion on Lebanon (one of the biggest geopolitcal blunders and the reason why Hezbollah exists today) does not make for statesman material in any case .

This reminds me of a great joke: who are the two biggest enemies of the Palestinian people? Well, the second greatest is Sharon. The greatest, of course, is Arafat :D

While I think that the Sharon-detractors in this thread are mostly spot-on, I would like to note that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was a good idea in theory. A Syrian Lebanon (which would have been completely inevitable without Israeli action) would have opened up a much larger, much less defensible border with a hostile military dictatorship. The action also theoretically helped sustain Lebanon as an independent nation, even if it did spend a couple decades being divided into de facto Syrian and Israeli protectorates.

EDIT: Also the possibility of honest-to-god ethnic cleansing against the Maronites.
 
So, nobody basically disagrees that in both sides of any given confrontation, it is the radicals that have a vested interest to prolong it . Would Iran have fallen to the fundamentalists after the revolution without the Iran-Iraq war? Would Ahmadinejad have come to power had it not been for the "war of the righteous" of G.W.Bush and the neocons ? And truly ,would the PLO have accepted Arafat as their head had he not been or seemed as "extremist" during the 60's and 70's? To their credit , Rabin and Sharon were acknowledged military leaders before going into politics .
 
Top