Israeli Minister's Murder Leaves Peace Hopes in Peril

Rechavam Ze'evy was born in Jerusalem in 1926. A graduate of the Command and General Staff College of the U.S. Army, he rose through the ranks of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), eventually attaining the rank of Major General responsible for the central region of Israel, including the West Bank. In 1974, he left the IDF to serve as Advisor to Prime Minister Rabin on Anti-Terror Matters and Intelligence, a post he occupied for three years. Ze'evy was first elected to the Knesset in 1988 as Chairman of the Moledet (Homeland) faction. He has served as a member of the Knesset House, Foreign Affairs and Defense, Education and Culture, and State Control Committees. He served as a minister without a portfolio from 1991 to 1992 in the Shamir government. In March 2001, he was appointed Minister of Tourism in the Sharon government.

Ze'evy, head of the National Unity-Israel Beitanu Knesset Faction, had resigned from his ministerial post on Tuesday, Oct. 16 in protest of the government's decision to withdraw Israeli forces from Palestinian neighborhoods in Hebron. His resignation was to have taken effect the afternoon of Oct. 17. Instead, the Knesset held a special session at the time his resignation was to have taken effect to eulogize the slain minister.

Ze'evy's assassination is the first of a ranking Israeli politician since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's in 1995, and—given the PFLP's claims of responsibility—the first at Arab hands since the establishment of Israel in 1948. His death has already had serious repercussions. The assassination took place after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had announced that he would personally lead the anticipated negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, negotiations that Sharon said would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Sharon's first reaction was an unequivocal reversal of this position. Sharon, paraphrasing U.S. President George Bush, said, "What has been until now will be no longer… We will wage a war without mercy against the terrorists. Only criminal terrorists could dream of assassinating elected members of a democratic state. I hold Arafat fully responsible, inasmuch as he set the terrorism in motion, even though he knew what the consequences would be." After a series of emergency cabinet meetings, the Israeli government issued an ultimatum to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, demanding that the murderers be turned over to Israel immediately. "If the Palestinian Authority does not meet our demands, there will be no choice but to consider it as an entity that supports terrorism and to act accordingly," Gideon Saar, the cabinet secretary, said after the emergency meeting.

The Israeli military response was swift. On the morning of Oct. 18, IDF tanks entered the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Jenin. In Jenin, an 10 year-old schoolgirl was killed when Israeli tank fire hit a Palestinian school, sources at a Palestinian hospital said. Israel has denied that it fired on a school. Hours later, an explosion—alternately attributed to a car bomb and army helicopter fire—killed three Palestinians, including Atef Abayat, the Bethlehem military commander of Arafat's Tanzim faction.

The Palestinian Authority later announced it had banned the PFLP and arrested 12 of its members.

As the battle raged, Rehavam Ze'evy's body lay in state in the Knesset plaza. Israelis came together to pay their last respects to a man whom they deeply respected. Many arrived early in the morning from far away in order to be able to walk past his flag-draped coffin. Assaf, a young man from Eilat, drove six hours through the night in order to stand before the coffin for a few minutes. Assaf said: "I didn't agree with him. But he was a good man who deeply loved Israel. How could I not be here?" An American-Israeli woman who preferred not to identify herself other than to say that she was from the Beth-El settlement said: "I am very angry. I think that what needs to be done now is what Bush has done. This murder must be revenged." Suzi, sitting stiffly in her wheelchair, had made the journey from Hadera [near Haifa, in northern Israel] simply because she wished to pay final respects to a man whose controversial political perspective she shared.

Rabbi Meir, a teacher at a religious school for boys in East Jerusalem, brought his 5th grade students. With his students standing around him, Rabbi Meir quietly said: "Rehavam Ze'evy had the courage to stand up and say what so many of us believe in. He was a deeply spiritual man. I would often see him walking in the Old City. He defended the Old City as a soldier and worked to build up and defend the country." Then, in front of his students, the rabbi began to cry.

Controversial, But Loved

Throughout his career, Ze'evy was known for his far-right views. He gained notoriety for comparing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Adolf Hitler and for advocating the "transfer," or expulsion, of Palestinians from areas Israel seized in the 1967 war.

In June, 2001, he referred to Palestinians working illegally in Israel as "lice" who must be stopped as if they were "cancer spreading within us."

But despite the fact that Ze'evy's unapologetically hawkish views often brought him into conflict with more moderate elements in the Israeli government, he maintained deep personal friendships with politicians from across the political spectrum. Politicians and members of Knesset from all political parties unanimously expressed their admiration for him today. Shulamit Aloni, former Chairwoman of the left-wing Meretz Party said, "Ze'evy and I were friends. We knew that we would never persuade each other politically, but there were many other things for us to talk about. Both of us shared a love for literature, poetry, and theatre, and so we spoke about that. Occasionally we would speak of politics. In our political arguments he was always straightforward, logical, and honest."

Abd el-Malek Dahamsha, a member of the Knesset for the United Arab List party, said: "Despite the fact that we are political opposites, Ze'evy and I had a friendship born of fundamental respect for one another. Sometimes we would speak strongly to one another, but we always respected one another."

As he was buried this afternoon, Ze'evy's close friend, actor Chaim Topol, told Israeli Broadcast Authority Television (government-owned), "We all loved him. He was always true to his convictions. For me he was too left-wing."