Hundreds of thousands at Tel Aviv rally for Rabin

From: http://www.yahoo.com/

Sat Nov 3, 3:13 PM ET

TEL AVIV (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday gathered on the Tel Aviv square where Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down by a Jewish extremist 12 years ago, an AFP correspondent said.
Organisers said the rally to commemorate Rabin's murder drew a crowd of 500,000 people.
"You are the heirs of Rabin. Do not flinch -- continue on the path which he traced, that of peace and security," President Shimon Peres, who was with Rabin when he was shot on November 4, 1995, told the crowd.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak also attended the ceremonies in Rabin Square, which was renamed after the assassination.
In an emotional event the demonstrators were played Rabin's last words at an open-air peace rally after which he was shot. "I know there is a chance for peace and we must seize it," he said just minutes before he was killed.
Saturday's demonstration was held under banners reading "Yes to peace, no to violence" and "We will not forget, we will not forgive."
Peres said earlier this week that Rabin's far-right assassin Yigal Amir had failed in his plot to sabotage efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Rabin is revered as a national hero, both for his legendary military career and for his peace efforts in the 1990s that earned him a Nobel peace prize, shared with Peres and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The commemoration of the 12th anniversary began before sundown on October 23 in keeping with the Hebrew calendar.
This year's events come as a group of extreme right-wingers campaigns for clemency for Amir, who has spent 12 years in solitary confinement after having fired three bullets into Rabin's back at the end of the Tel Aviv rally.

Blogger Comment:

1- Rabin is a great man. He is a hero to his country and religion.
2- The Arab and Muslims need a great man like him now to achieve peace and fulfil the Israel and Palatine people aspiration to live in peace and prosperity in two neighbouring states.
3- Other Muslim countries have to forget for good this struggle and go one with peaceful, just and prosperous years or millennium.