Yuval Rabin: Wrong to blame my father for terror deaths
Slain PM's son says massive suicide bombings only began after Baruch Goldstein's shooting spree on Arabs praying at Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANSlain Israeli Prime Minister Rabin with former US President Bill Clinton and former PLO President Yasser Arafat after signing the Oslo Accords at the White House on September 13, 1993. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s son defended his father Tuesday from allegations that the Oslo Accords, which he signed, led to the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis in terrorist attacks.Yuval Rabin said massive suicide bombings only began following Baruch Goldstein’s February 25, 1994, shooting spree on Arabs praying at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs.“Any attempt to link the thousand or so deaths to Oslo is outrageous in my opinion,” Rabin said in an interview with online radio station Voice of Israel. “No one can say that this horrendous form of terrorism, suicide bombings, would not have made its way into Israel with or without Oslo.”Rabin noted that alongside negotiating withdrawing from land, his father also led what he called “an uncompromising war on terrorism” and strengthened the IDF. He said the Oslo Accords also led to key international markets opening for Israel.Rabin will be organizing a memorial rally for his father in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on November 1. The attempt will try to build support for a regional approach to seeking peace in the Middle East.When asked about the various attempts to define his father’s legacy, Rabin rejected efforts by the Left to paint the late prime minister as the initiator of a future Palestinian state.“I don’t think you can in any way connect my father to the concepts of a Palestinian state or a two-state solution,” he said. “My father was very strict about allowing the negotiations to conduct themselves. In no way did he address what the final status should be.”
