Hanegbi in, Meretz out of Rabin rally

Shaffir: PM has blood on his hands

Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg expressed outrage on Wednesday after she found out that she was not invited to address the November 3 rally in memory of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. The rally takes place every year in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi of the Likud is scheduled to address the demonstration.

Zandberg told The Jerusalem Post that she attended the peace rally in which Rabin was assassinated in what was then called Malchei Israel Square. An 18-year-old peace activist at the time, she sang the Song of Peace at the rally.

“Memory cannot be purchased, and neither can peace,” Zandberg said. “Those who sang the peace song beside Rabin are being distanced from the rally [while] those who incited from the porch will be there.” Zandberg was referring to a rally held in Jerusalem’s Zion Square in which then opposition leader and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke from a porch and did not notice that flyers of Rabin in an SS uniform were being distributed below. Hanegbi did not attend the rally.

Hanegbi said it was important for him to speak at the rally, so that a right-wing perspective would be heard. Other speakers at the event will include opposition leader Tzipi Livni, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and Zionist Union head Avi Gabbay.

Meanwhile, Zionist Union MK Stav Shaffir caused an uproar when she wrote on her Facebook page that Netanyahu has “blood on his hands,” accusing him of encouraging incitement ahead of Rabin’s murder. Netanyahu has repeatedly denied encouraging incitement.

“The man whose career was built on hate, then and now and in the future, has no ethics or limits,” Shaffir wrote of Netanyahu. “We will continue to say it because it is the truth: He has blood on his hands.”