Glaring Anomalies in the 1995 Assassination of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin

Officially, Israeli prime minster Yitzhak Rabin’s murder was a cut-and-dry affair. On Nov. 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated while leaving a peace rally by Yigal Amir, a radical right-wing Orthodox Jew who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Photographic evidence of the event was strangely missing. Poor-quality, grainy video footage then emerged 45 days later, filmed by amateur cameraman Ronnie Kempler from a nearby rooftop. It shows Amir shooting Rabin in the back.

The footage also shows Amir got no closer than two or three feet from Rabin before firing the first shot. The second shot — heard but not seen in the video footage — was even further away, according to a variety of witnesses, including Amir.

The Kempler film effectively convicted Amir in the eyes of the world, though it was heavily and artfully tampered with. Like the Zapruder film, the Kempler film has been shown to have been edited and altered. This could not have happened accidentally. Importantly, the video footage blurs and darkens at critical points, making it impossible to follow the sequence of events.

Ronnie Kempler, when interviewed, was unable to adequately explain why this was, nor could he give an acceptable reason why he was permitted on the rooftop opposite Rabin’s exit route. The rooftop had police and security personnel stationed on it, but they simply ignored Kempler. Kempler also focused on Amir, standing alone before the shooting. Asked why he concentrated on the assassin to be, Kempler declared, “I felt there was something suspicious about him.”

The Familiar Pattern of Replacing Regular Personnel

Immediately following the assassination attempt, Rabin was bundled into his limousine and the driver, Menachem Damti, raced the 700 metres to Ichilov Hospital. At least he would have raced had he not gotten lost. Damti, a last-minute replacement for Rabin’s scheduled driver, was one of the most experienced drivers in Shabak (secret service). He had almost 25 years experience and knew the streets of Tel Aviv like the back of his hand. Ordinarily, he would have covered the distance to the hospital in just over one minute. This night, however, when the streets were virtually traffic free, the trip took eight and a half minutes.

Shabak Chief Carmi Gillon explained that their failure to protect Rabin that evening was because they had no “contingency plan” to protect the head of state against a lone gunman. However, two former commanding officers of Shabak’s “personal security unit” say otherwise. Tuvia Livneh and Yisrael Shai say Rabin wouldn’t have been murdered had they been on duty that night. They claim there was a contingency plan and that it had been practiced endless times. This included dry runs at the Kings of Israel Square. These exercises covered the possibility that an assassin would attack from the sterile area located at the bottom of the exit stairs behind the stage — the precise spot Amir struck from. The two former bodyguards are amazed that Amir remained alive, as their plans called for the assassin to be shot after he fired his gun. This would avoid him getting off a second shot.

An Examination of the ‘Assassination’

Kempler footage detail is extremely poor, especially in terms of shadowy gunman Amir. Rabin can be seen more clearly, and there is a glaring security gap on his backside. The other aspect that stands out is that Rabin doesn’t even flinch from the impact of three 9 mm hollow-point bullets. You can see the rather sketchy looking shot muzzles at 0:29-0;30 for the timing, and then watch Rabin’s reaction. Then, par for the course, and highly suspicious, the cameraman misses the rest and key part of the action for several seconds.

According to an announcement by the Minister of Health during live news coverage the night of the assassination, Rabin took three bullets: one in the chest, one in the stomach and one in the spine. Looking at the footage it is difficult to envision a frontal wound. However, the head of the hospital announced on the news live that evening and wrote in his handwritten report from the surgery that Rabin had received just two gunshot wounds, including one that shattered his spinal cord.

Handwritten notes from that night by the senior surgeon who oversaw the treatment of Rabin also indicated just two bullets, one of which shattered his spinal cord.

Mordecai Gutman, was the surgeon who operated on Rabin, prepared the autopsy report. Records indicate that there were three wounds not two. Two of these were to the back and one to the chest. The latter was described by Dr. Gutman as “bullet wound in upper lung lobe of 2.5-3 cm. Exit wound in direction of D5-6 with a shattering of vertebrae.”

And yet, the final medical report, the coroner’s report and the Shamgar commission say that Rabin was shot twice through the back, neither hitting his spinal cord.

Of course, whatever is the case with these inconsistent reports, there is no way Rabin could have continued walking undisturbed after he was shot. He would have dropped like a rock.

Rabin’s wife later wrote in her book that her husband seemed to be okay, and that she repeatedly asked the bodyguards what had happened and they kept telling her it wasn’t real. Many security or police personnel reported having seen no indication that Rabin was hurt. There were also no bloodstains on the ground at the scene of the shooting despite Rabin being allegedly shot by 9mm hollow point bullets in the lung and spleen. There was also no gunpowder residue found on Amir’s hands, clothes or hair, which would have been impossible unless he fired blanks.

Numerous witnesses testified that as Amir shot at Rabin’s unprotected back, many policemen and bodyguards shouted out “they’re blanks!” The sound of the gun going off was closer to a “party popper” than a pistol firing, others reported. This led a great many people to believe the shooting was a hoax rather than an assassination attempt. One eyewitness, Mirian Oren, told a national television station that 10 minutes after the shooting Rabin wasn’t hurt. “I saw him walk to the car,” she said. She speaks Hebrew, but this is Oren’s comment.

Can’t Get Their Story Straight

Two entirely different pathologists claim they removed the bullets from Rabin’s body. Dr. Hiss says he removed the bullets and put them in a safe. In stark contrast, Dr. Kluger testified that he removed the bullets from Rabin. Meanwhile, there are two different versions regarding who took possession of the bullets after they had been removed from the corpse.

Dr. Hiss told the court at Amir’s trial, “A policeman took the bullets I removed from Rabin and transferred them to the police laboratory the next day.” Asked to identify the policeman, the pathologist couldn’t. “I don’t know his name, and I don’t recall what he looked like,” he said.  However, Yoram Rubin, one of Rabin’s bodyguards, testified that the bullets and Rabin’s clothes were taken by Yuval Schwartz, “a friend of mine from work.”

Alternative Theories

There are a slew of conspiracy theories in Israel and elsewhere. Winter Watch’s only takeaway is that Rabin was not shot in the Kempler footage, so either of the following are plausible.

One theory holds he was dragged into his limo, and popped there on the way to the hospital. Main proponent is Barry Chamish – see comments below.

The second theory, and the one we lean toward, is that this was a staged deception. Rabin was 73 at the time of the alleged assassination. He was involved in intrigues and plots throughout his career. Bowing out as a martyr is not such as tough decision, as he was ready to retire. Was he already ill? The picture at right shows him flushed and smoking a cigarette. These are signs of high blood pressure and heart disease.

The Purpose of this Psyop or Stealth Assassination

Of course one goal was to keep the populace in permanent trauma. Another was to deepen the already deep divides or dialectic between certain parts of Israeli society. Rabin is the hero of the more secular sectors. But the killing also served notice and has a chilling affect on those who stand up to the hard-line expansionist elements.

Was Rabin really such a good guy? Would relations with the Palestinians have fared better? For most of his life, he was a warmonger. As a two-star general and Defense Minister during the first Intifada, he infamously ordered Israeli soldiers to “ break the bones ”of Palestinian protesters (this is a good link)

He played a leading role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the war that won Israel its independence. Israeli writer Benny Morris offers a history of the period. Incidentally, Morris is an apologist for Zionist ethnic expulsions. The Lydda and Ramle expulsion totaled 50,000 to 70,000 Palestinians.

Once the Israelis were in control of the towns, an expulsion order signed by Yitzhak Rabin was issued to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stating, “1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age.” Ramle’s residents were bussed out, while the people of Lydda were forced to walk miles during a summer heat wave to the Arab front lines, where the Arab Legion, Transjordan’s British-led army, tried to provide shelter and supplies. A number of the refugees died during the exodus from exhaustion and dehydration.

Rabin was Chief of Staff of the IDF during the Six Day War, which was started by Israel. That war ended with major expansion: the capture of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza strip and the Sinai Peninsula.

We are told Rabin was willing to make concessions on West Bank settlements in exchange for peace. But if he was really interested in peace, why didn’t he put a stop to the settlement project when he had the chance, like when he was prime minister in the late 1970s? Or again in the 1990s? No, he always did his best to build and bolster the settlements.

ATTRIBUTION NOTE: Portions of this post and some observations originated from “Was the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin a Hoax?” by Josh G.