Memorial Sparks Debate

A commemoration in honor of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s death 10 years ago spurred a heated debate about his legacy last night.

The evening, organized by Harvard Hillel, began with people sharing their personal thoughts about Rabin and a collective chant of the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer. Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995.

But the atmosphere in the crowded Adams Lower Common quickly changed from elegiac to combative when the panel discussion began.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature Ruth R. Wisse accused Rabin of legitimating terrorism and betraying his voters by negotiating peace with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during the Oslo Accords.

“This made Rabin the first politician in the history of the world who armed his enemy in the expectation of gaining security,” Wisse said. “It is the most fatal policy of Jewish make-believe. Jews make believe they have no enemies.”

Wisse asserted that Jews have a weakness caused by their “phenomenal” hunger for peace, and that no Jew wants war.

“I think it is ludicrous to say that there are no Israelis who want to attack Arabs when there has been an occupation for 38 years,” responded Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Avi Matalon.

Matalon said that Israel is fighting a war on two fronts, both against the Palestinians and against those Israelis who refuse to see the world in realistic terms. To him, radical Israelis inhabit the same ideological side as the Islamic fundamentalists.

“The danger now is if we’re not careful we will wake up in a Jewish Iran,” Matalon said.

“I wish that were my problem,” retorted Wisse. “I wish I worried about a Jewish Iran. I worry about it turning into an Iranian Iran.”

Some of the Israeli audience members took issue with Wisse’s criticism of Rabin.

“I think that those of us who live in Israel and live in daily fear of dying can understand why we wanted peace,” said an Israeli woman, referring to Wisse’s criticism of Rabin’s negotiations with Arafat. “You say he did not run on peace, but he did. I voted for him in 1992 because I wanted peace.”

Seth R. Flaxman ’08—co-chair of the Progressive Jewish Alliance—commented on the different perspectives of Americans and Israelis.

“There’s always a difference, even among people of the same ideological point of view, between Israelis and American Jews,” said Flaxman. “It gets to the heart of the question about Israel being a Jewish state, and the question of how American Jews relate to the state of Israel.”

Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky ’07 elicited murmurs of appreciation when he questioned Wisse’s separation of the Jewish future from that of humanity.

“I learned growing up that the freedom of Jewish people is bound up in the freedom of all people,” said Gould-Wartofsky, a member of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. “I’m wondering where your tradition comes from because that’s not my Jewish tradition.”

Organizers of the event appeared to be surprised by the palpable intensity of the debate, but not displeased.

“I think both [the commemoration and the panel discussion] were important, and complementary if somewhat dissonant,” said Hillel President and Director Bernie Steinberg. “I think it created an interesting tension.”