Empty words from an empty person

Last night President Shimon Peres stood up at the Rabin memorial and said "Next year, in this square, I want to see that part of the nation that doesn't see itself as a part of this memorial event. That part of the nation that was not involved in that horrible night [when Rabin was assassinated] and that did not pull the trigger”.

I speak for nobody but myself, but this is what came to mind when I read those words:

You are a fraud, Shimon Peres.  You took office with a promise to heal old wounds and bring about a national reconciliation.  From that time until this, you have barely even given lip service to that admirable goal.  Instead you have studiously ignored every violent act by leftists and anarchists and branded every misdeed from the right as the harbinger of 'the next inevitable political assassination'. 

You have never been interested in a national reconciliation, so it puzzles me why you would bother even mouthing the words at this point in your career. 

In your famous Haaretz interview with Daniel Ben Simon following your loss in the 1996 elections, you divided our people neatly into two camps; 'Israelis' and 'Jews'.  According to that interview, the Jews are those who don't have "an Israeli Mentality".  You counted yourself then among the Israelis, and sneered down your prominent Semitic nose at the Jews.

Tell me President Peres... what has changed since then?  Have you and your friends come to a new way of reckoning our people?  Have you arrived at some new formula for doling out legitimacy?  If not, why would you think that 'the Jews' would suddenly come to your party? 

Make no mistake, we feel the same loss of national innocence that you do when we look back at that tragic night.  But we have never been allowed to publicly grieve for a murdered Prime Minister who was just as much our leader as yours.  That privilege has been reserved each year for you and 'the Israelis' who use the occasion to point accusatory fingers towards the right... daring us to profane the night with a harsh word for your St. Yitzhak... and hunkering down at the podium as if the bullets might begin flying again at any moment.

You look out at Rabin Square and wonder rhetorically where the other part of the nation is... but did you even bother to invite us? 

You tell the assembled throngs that the absent part of the nation did not pull the trigger that horrible night, but look behind you at the speakers who were chosen to address the crowd.  Is there a single one among them who hasn't answered every angry complaint from the right with the accusation: "Those are exactly the kind of dangerous words that proceeded Rabin's assassination"?!

Sticks and stones thrown at Israeli soldiers on a daily basis by 'anarchists' from the Israeli left are ignored as a legitimate way of expressing displeasure with the government's decisions.  But when so much as names are thrown from the right, you and your friends take cover behind the memory of a lunatic who acted on nobody's behalf but his own

No matter how insincere your wish last night may have been, President Peres, I share it.  I too wish that one day a memorial for a murdered leader might include all of the people he served, and not just those who would usurp his legacy for their own political gains. 

I would be among the first to arrive at Rabin Square if I felt welcome... and the last to leave.  I would listen to Israeli leaders speaking unabashedly about our Jewish country, and I would place my energy and talents at their disposal.

But until the day arrives when the current crop of empty people ceases uttering their empty words, I and the part of the nation you consider to be hardly better than murderers will stay away and apply our honest efforts elsewhere.