How does Israel fit into the big picture?

[David Guyatt]

Myra Bronstein post No. 20

The last time there was a credible prospect of peace breaking out in the Middle East was in the early nineties, a time when a powerful constituency of Israelis believed that continued conflict was no longer an option.

One reason why Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by Shabak, Israel's internal security organization was the danger that peace was about to break out. To make his murder more telling, he was shot after speaking at a peace rally...

Sorry to change topic somewhat but it is not something to be overlooked in this respect.

[Magda Hassan]

Many factors contributed to the subsequent breakdown....However, two factors that contributed to Israel's retreat into unilateralism are little understood and rarely discussed, both related to the unique ways that the Chicago School free-market crusade played out in Israel. One was the influx of Soviet Jews, which was a direct result of Russia's shock therapy experiment. The other was the flipping of Israel's export economy from one based on traditional goods and high technology to one disproportionately dependent on selling expertise and devices related to counterrorism. Both factors were greatly disruptive to the Oslo process: the arrival of Russians reduced Israel's reliance on Palestinian labor and allowed it to seal in the occupied territories, while the rapid expansion of the high-tech security economy created a powerful appetite inside Israel's wealthy and most powerful sectors for abandoning peace in favor of fighting a continual, and continuously expanding, War on Terror.

Perhaps there is another underlying influence which she hasn't mentioned. South Africa. South Africa was part of the Jewish diaspora like the other English (and non-English, for that matter) speaking nations. While the role played by some Jews in the anti-aparteid movement is exemplary others were involved in less noble and more lucrative activities. Since the end of the apartheid era many people have left South Africa amongst them S.A. Jews. Some have gone to Israel and some have gone elsewhere. Amongst the many South Africans I have met here during that time some were involved in 'security' in South Africa. 'Security' in South Africa is more than just deadlocks on the doors and windows or sending a security guard to check the factory gates are locked. Way more. I also recall during the early 1980's looking at the undergraduate courses available externally at the University of South Africa (UNISA) Half the handbook was full of Police Studies, Security Studies and Prison Studies that would thrill the cold shriveled heart of a dyed in the wool fascist like Darth Vader and UNISA was considered a most liberal university compared to others. It was obviously a HUGE industry there. South Africa had a very healthy arms industry in those days too. Self funded? Funded by whom? What was the UK connection especially during the boycott? It is interesting the whole parallel apartheid wall (existence) being built around parts of the occupied territories and the bantustans of old South Africa. Also, as two pariah states apartheid South Africa and Israel had strong ties.

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra Bronstein post No. 20

One reason why Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by Shabak, Israel's internal security organization was the danger that peace was about to break out. To make his murder more telling, he was shot after speaking at a peace rally...

Sorry to change topic somewhat but it is not something to be overlooked in this respect.

That is not a change in topic David. It's central to the topic.

Do you have an opinion on what the Kemplar video reveals?
Was he shot inside the limo or outside the limo or both?
And who was inside the limo with him?

[Mark Stapleton]

It is interesting the whole parallel apartheid wall (existence) being built around parts of the occupied territories and the bantustans of old South Africa. Also, as two pariah states apartheid South Africa and Israel had strong ties.

There is a strong bond between South Africa and Israel, imo.

For years they shared similar geopolitical circumstances. They might have shared nuclear technology as they emerged with nuclear capability at roughly the same time. Of course, when it comes to the military application of apartheid, Israel is in a class of its own.

There's also the story of Malcolm Fraser's pants. I was told by an ex spook, who I regard as honest, that the pants swiping was the work of a Mossad spook, who was in town at the time, and did it as a favor to his South African fellow spooks. Fraser was a vocal critic of South African apartheid at the time.

I can't verify the accuracy of it, but it seems plausible.

[David Guyatt]

That is not a change in topic David. It's central to the topic.

Do you have an opinion on what the Kemplar video reveals?
Was he shot inside the limo or outside the limo or both?
And who was inside the limo with him?

Myra, I watched the Kemplar video fully and in slo-mo in a hotel room in Leeds in the company of a Brit TV doco maker and Barry Shamish. I was trying to get the TV producer to make a doc for British TV on Rabin's murder. As Barry Chamish took us both through the footage it became evident -- no, obvious -- that Rabin's bodyguards had betrayed him.

The TV producer took the project on and worked hard at it and we had a ton of actual evidence, but ultimately no UK Broadcaster would touch the idea with a barge-pole.

Barry's view was that Rabin was actually shot in his limo or at the hospital. This view is probably correct when all the forensic evidence is weighed. I still have a copy of the surgeons handwritten report of his initial examination of Rabin. The death shot was a contact shot to the chest. If you remember the events, the official story (and Ronnie Kemplar's video footage) shows Rabin was shot twice in the back from a distance of a foot or two away.

Then, of course, we need to ask just how Kemplar, allegedly just a tourist in the city, managed to get on the rooftop to film Rabin's planed exit route from the Peace rally to his limo. That rooftop had armed Shabak officers on it.

This is just a fraction of the of the surface that we collectively scratched.

Barry was sure that it was the Americans who were ultimately responsible, albeit Shabak were the contracted party.

[Magda Hassan]

This is fascinating David and Myra. I have not seen this video. Do you have a link?

[Mark Stapleton]

I second what Maggie says. Very interesting.

Never looked closely at the Rabin hit but already one sees the parallels to JFK--SS betrayal, amateur filmmaker records assassination. Spooky.

[Myra Bronstein]

This is fascinating David and Myra. I have not seen this video. Do you have a link?

Maggie the video is here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...ideo+rabin
The audio has a horrible buzz and it can just be muted since commentary is in Hebrew anyway. According to the URL "The Yitzhak Rabin murder video is the ten minute video that was shown on Israeli TV one time in December,1995 and the Israeli government realized that the video reveals the dishonesty of the "official" version of the assassination. the complete video was never shown or mentioned again on Israeli TV."

It was supposedly filmed by some guy on a roof named Kempler. Of course there are questions about his authenticity, as David indicated.

Some of the supposed contradictions with the official story are listed at the Wikipedia page (I know I'm a hypocrite 'cause I mistrust Wikipedia, but I'm a lazy hypocrite and it's easy to paste a URL): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rab...y_theories

I really can't see enough in the video to know if what is depicted contradicts the official account. It does seem to show that he was shot in the back, not in the chest however.

The Wikipedia site has some good links. This looks interesting: http://www.tisanim.com/Web/Sites/hadar/PAGE17.asp

Echoes of JFK and RFK in much of this.

On edit: Good overview here: http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/.../rabin.htm

[David Guyatt]

The Kempler video had been doctored with when it was first broadcast, which didn't do any favours to its credibility. But I notice that the copy Myra posted above has been even further doctored with when compared to the copy given to me by Barry Chamish and which Ricard & I first viewed in the Leeds hotel room.

In that copy it was very clear that the bodyguard walking to the rear left of Rabin suddenly stopped, turned, placed his hands together in front of him and stood still. Rabin and his other bodyguard (positioned on his right rear shoulder) continued walking. Thus a space opened behind Rabin and it was in this exact space that Yigal Amir stepped into to shoot the two shots. The firing of these two shots were also able to be seen in the original footage, as well as Rabin being tumbled to the floor and then literally thrown in the limo.

The subsequent journey to Ichilov hospital, approximately 800 hundreds yards distant -- with the roads pre-cleared of all traffic by security -- was truly remarkable. A runner could have covered the distance involved in under 4 minutes, whereas a panic race by his security driver to the hospital bearing the twice shot (apparently) head of state should have taken no more than 1 minute in real life (and probably half of that).

In reality, this journey took 8.5 minutes.

Plenty of time to administer the fatal contact shot to the chest.

[Mark Stapleton]

Fascinating material.