The memorial event marking the 23rd anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination was marred by controversy on Sunday after Rabin's granddaughter lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a combative speech.
Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on Nov. 4, 1995, by a Jewish zealot opposed to the Oslo Accords. The accords, which stipulated the handover of areas of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip to the newly formed Palestinian Authority, were highly contested by the Right and led to massive demonstrations and incitement.
During Sunday's memorial, held at Rabin's grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, his granddaughter Noa Rothman verbally attacked Netanyahu, who was in attendance alongside other senior officials.
"There is great strife in the nation, and you, the elected officials, have the power to stop it. Don't just stand idly by," she said, before making her most controversial accusation: "Just recently, someone tweeted a post on behalf of the prime minister's spokeswoman that included the word 'traitor' [in regard to Rabin] … and no one condemned it."
The accusation was later refuted by the prime minister and his office, further fueling outrage on the Right.
Speaking at the memorial, President Reuven Rivlin said the assassination day should be marked as "a day of reckoning, in which we are tested to see whether we can engage in dialogue and listen as much as we can argue."
He said that "instead of having the memory of this assassination serve as a bridge between Right and Left, it has become a victim of the political divide; rather than serve as a basis for dialogue, it has become a source for political swiping."
Rivlin said it "is incumbent upon us to find a way in which the memory of the murder and its lessons trickle down to every segment of society, to every tribe, without exception."
Speaking at the event, Netanyahu said Rabin's assassination "was a despicable crime that ended the life of an elected leader whose contribution to the state's founding and existence will live on for many generations."
He said that "there are two important things we should all remember: that we have a common past and a common future that binds us together; and that violence should be avoided at all cost, under every circumstance."
Speaking later at a special Knesset plenum session in memory of Rabin, Netanyahu debunked Rothman's claim.
"The post was tweeted by a journalist who has no ties to the Prime Minister's Office. I was not aware of it, and of course, I am against what it conveyed, vehemently so," Netanyahu said.
"This is yet another example of how those trying to fight incitement make unfounded accusations against me and against an entire public."
He stressed that despite the public perception, he had never used the word "traitor" in the mid-1990s when, as Likud chairman and opposition leader, he led the effort to derail the peace process Rabin was pursuing.
"I only said that he was wrong, and stressed that he was not a traitor," he said.
"I always made sure to stress that he was no traitor. He was a patriot and a Zionist in the truest sense of the word. … The only time I used any version of that word is when I wanted to say that he was not a traitor," Netanyahu told the Knesset.
