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Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories

Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories

Overview
Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories arose almost immediately following the assassination of
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin took place on November 4, 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv...

 Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat...

, the Israel
Israel
Israel officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...

i Prime Minister, on November 4, 1995. The gunman Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir is the Israeli assassin of Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv...

, a Jew
Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

ish Israeli student, was apprehended within seconds by other people in the crowd. Rabin died later on the operating table of Ichilov Hospital. Amir confessed to the assassination of Rabin.

The matter has been reported as clear cut in the media, and the Shamgar national inquiry commission and the court all drew the same conclusion that Amir was guilty of murder.
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Encyclopedia
Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories arose almost immediately following the assassination of
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin took place on November 4, 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv...

 Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat...

, the Israel
Israel
Israel officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...

i Prime Minister, on November 4, 1995. The gunman Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir
Yigal Amir is the Israeli assassin of Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv...

, a Jew
Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

ish Israeli student, was apprehended within seconds by other people in the crowd. Rabin died later on the operating table of Ichilov Hospital. Amir confessed to the assassination of Rabin.

The matter has been reported as clear cut in the media, and the Shamgar national inquiry commission and the court all drew the same conclusion that Amir was guilty of murder. Yet, some inconsistencies in the evidence have been alleged, both in the medical records and in the inquiry testimony. These allegations and other suspicions have been included in occasional left-wing, and more prevalent right-wing conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory is a term that originally was a neutral descriptor for any conspiracy claim. However, it has come almost exclusively to refer to any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful Machiavellian conspirators.Conspiracy...

.

Conspiracy claims


A number of conspiracy theories have made some or all of the following claims. Others have been strident in opposing these conclusions.
  • Police reports state that gunpowder
    Gunpowder
    Gunpowder, also called black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. It burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. The term gunpowder also refers broadly to any...

     was found on Rabin's body and clothing, suggesting that he had been shot at point-blank range
    Point-blank range
    In external ballistics, point-blank range is the distance between a firearm and a target of a given size such that the bullet in flight is expected to strike the target without adjusting the elevation of the firearm . The point-blank range will vary with the firearm and its particular ballistic...

    , as gunpowder travels only a few inches before dispersing. According to the official version, Amir shot from a distance at which no powder traces could have settled on Rabin's body and clothing.
  • Surgery reports describing a bullet wound with the bullet entrance in the chest are inconsistent with the eyewitness reports and the Kempler video
    Kempler video
    The Kempler video is a film made by Roni Kempler while standing initially at the crime scene at the northeast side of the City Hall of Tel Aviv-Yafo and later on the roof of the "Gan Ha'ir"-mall overlooking the scene before and during the assassination of Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin on...

    , which suggest that Rabin was shot in the back while walking away from Yigal Amir.
  • Rabin would have walked after Amir's shots in a manner inconsistent with gunshot, an impossibility if they shattered the vertebrae.
  • Each medical record describes wounds which are "completely different" in nature to those concluded by the official Shamgar Commission. Medical descriptions of Rabin's condition are described as suddenly appearing to change.
  • Dr Guttman, a physician, opined that "[t]he first two wounds, to the chest and abdomen occurred before Rabin's arrival. The third, frontal chest wound, had to have been inflicted after he entered the hospital," and that "it is inconceivable that Rabin had no spinal damage. The six members of the operating team were too skilled to have all been wrong about that."
  • Three police officers who had been present testified that "when Yitzhak Rabin was placed in the car, he showed no visible wounds." Gordon Thomas in his book "Gideon's Spies" adds: "The surgeons insisted there was no possible gunshot wound that would have allowed Rabin to leave the attack site showing no evidence of a wound and arrive at the hospital with multiple damage ... subsequently the doctors have refused to discuss the matter."
  • Rabin's motorcade took 22 minutes to arrive at the hospital, even though he had a highly experienced chauffeur, and the streets were cordoned-off. The distance between the crime scene and the hospital is a five minute walk.
  • Police ballistics tests on shell casings found at the scene did not match Amir's gun.
  • No gunpowder residue was found on Amir's hands, clothing, or hair. Gunpowder residue would inevitably have been present if Amir had shot genuine bullets, as opposed to blanks. (Gunpowder would have been present for either blanks or live rounds. Blanks contain the same if not more powder than live rounds and typically expel more powder residue in the direction of the shooter because less is able to exit the barrel by traveling the path a bullet would normally travel. Whoever developed this part of the conspiracy theory does not know much about ballistics or firearms.)
  • No blood was seen coming from Rabin at the scene, despite wounds to his lung and spleen, nor was any found later at that location. By contrast witnesses describe blood "gushing" from a chest wound upon arriving at hospital.
  • Some witnesses stated that someone shouted, "It's nothing ... they're blanks. It's a toy gun."
  • A Shin Bet (secret service) agent testified that "I heard a policeman shout to people to calm down. The shot is a blank."
  • Policeman Moshe Ephron stated: "The shots didn't sound natural. If they were real shots, they should have sounded much louder."
  • Leah Rabin stated that a security guard told her immediately after the incident that the bullets shot at her husband were "blanks". She further stated that she was told by an Israeli security chief that she "should not worry as the whole thing had been staged."
  • Amir, who was employed by the Shin Bet in Latvia about two years before the murder, commented at a court hearing, "If I were to tell the whole truth, the entire system would collapse. I know enough to destroy this country."

Criticisms of the conspiracy theories


The most common criticism of the conspiracy theories simply refutes and relativizes claims made in the conspiracy theories or by the conpiracy theorists and points out that the theories are detached from Israeli political culture, social relations and historic events.

Right-wing activists conclude that the right-wing conspiracy theorists serve the goals of the Israeli left.

Books

  • Uri Barkan - Srak, web-publication in Hebrew
    Hebrew language
    Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...

  • Barry Chamish - "Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin?", ISBN 1-57129-081-8.
  • David Morrison - Lies: The Israeli Secret Service And The Rabin Assassination

Articles in press and magazines

  • "Geula Amir: Yigal didn't murder Rabin",Ynet
    Ynet
    Ynet is one of the most popular Israeli news websites. While it is owned and operated by Yediot Ahronot, the country's leading daily newspaper, most of the content is original work published on the website only, written by a semi-independent staff. Originally launched in both Hebrew and Arabic...

  • "Israel's Plague of Conspiracism", by Professor Steven Plaut
    Steven Plaut
    Steven Plaut is an Associate Professor on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Haifa and a writer....

    , published in the Jewish Press weekly, January 18, 2006
  • "A Mother’s Defense", by Guela Amir, originally published in the defunct George Magazine, March 1997, p. 138
  • "10 years after murder, website asks who killed Yitzhak Rabin", by Natalie Prishkolnik in Ynet
    Ynet
    Ynet is one of the most popular Israeli news websites. While it is owned and operated by Yediot Ahronot, the country's leading daily newspaper, most of the content is original work published on the website only, written by a semi-independent staff. Originally launched in both Hebrew and Arabic...


Articles on alternative news sites


Miscellaneous