Dror Moreh is the director of The Gatekeepers, an Oscar nominee featuring 6 of Israel's Shabak chiefs.
The movie is getting a lot of buzz because it indicates that previous heads of the Shin Bet are admitting Israeli mistakes in the territories.
In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour Moreh had this to say:
More than a year before that, on the 4th of March 1994, there was a Right-wing rally in Ra'anana. The rally featured a coffin. Ever since that rally the Left has been claiming that the coffin was that of Rabin. Thus the Right was accused of wanting the death of Rabin and this incident was regarded as a milestone on the road to Rabin's murder. The Left relied on people's short memory, on their ignorance or on the fact that they weren't born yet or were very little back then. But thanks to the web we can now know if the coffin really symbolised the death of Rabin. In fact, one side of the coffin said "Rabin is burying us" (
If the director is so dismissive of the truth when on CNN, how loose with the truth was he with how he edited the film?
UPDATE - see comments; Yoel clarifies and adds some information.
AMANPOUR: You mentioned the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who was the one who signed the Oslo Accords and who believed in a peace settlement. I notice in the film that you brought up footage of the rallies before the assassination. And you featured -- at least the rallies featured -- Benjamin Netanyahu.
What were you saying by putting that video in? And what was he saying then?
MOREH: Well, there was a lot of incitement towards Rabin as a prime minister then. And Benjamin Netanyahu took his big share in that. I mean, the demonstration where Netanyahu is headed and behind him there is the coffin of Rabin. And he saw that. I'm absolutely sure that he saw that. He wasn't naive.
And he was heading those -- some of the rallies were horrible. I mean, they called Rabin a Nazi collaborator. They called Rabin -- especially the extreme right wing in Israel, they basically -- I mean, Yigal Amir, the assassin, is in jail.
But I think much of the perpetrators, the people who sent him, the extreme right wing rabbis, those politicians who were there, are as much to blame as the one that pulled the trigger. He [Yigal Amir - Yoel] was their [the rabbis' and the politicians' - Yoel] messenger.
Moreh is simply recycling the Israeli Left's blood libel myth that Bibi was somehow responsible for Rabin's death. Everyone of these accusations - that Bibi incited against Rabin, that there was a coffin of Rabin, that the Right was responsible for the poster of Rabin in SS uniform - is a complete lie.
In this video, dated the 17th of April 1995, more than half a year before Rabin's assassination, Bibi is seen telling a crowed of Likud supporters, who are shouting "Rabin is a traitor", that Rabin is not a traitor. He repeats this several times. He also tells the crowed that Rabin is wrong, that he'll have to step aside and that "we're dealing with political rivals, not enemies. We're one and the same people."
More than a year before that, on the 4th of March 1994, there was a Right-wing rally in Ra'anana. The rally featured a coffin. Ever since that rally the Left has been claiming that the coffin was that of Rabin. Thus the Right was accused of wanting the death of Rabin and this incident was regarded as a milestone on the road to Rabin's murder. The Left relied on people's short memory, on their ignorance or on the fact that they weren't born yet or were very little back then. But thanks to the web we can now know if the coffin really symbolised the death of Rabin. In fact, one side of the coffin said "Rabin is burying us" (
''רבין קובר אותנו'')
, while the other side said "Rabin is bringing about the death of Zionism" ("רבין ממית [ה]ציונות"). (see comments)
These are harsh words but the coffin symbolised the death of Zionism not the death of Rabin. It should be remembered that this was during the Oslo Accords when buses and suicide bombers were blowing up people on the streets of Israel on a daily or weekly basis.
Here and here Shelly Yachimovitch (now the head of Labor but then a journalist) and Tommy Lapid (Ya'ir Lapid's father) are calling upon the Left to stop accusing the Likud and Bibi of inciting against Rabin or of being responsible for his murder.
This is not to say that there wasn't incitement against Rabin among the far Right. But there was, and still is, also incitement on the Left. I can provide many examples.
If the director is so dismissive of the truth when on CNN, how loose with the truth was he with how he edited the film?
UPDATE - see comments; Yoel clarifies and adds some information.