The brother of the man who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 20 years ago was detained in Israel on Tuesday following his Facebook posting that appeared to threaten Israel’s current president, Reuven Rivlin.
Hagai Amir, whose brother Yigal shot and killed Rabin at a public rally because of the Israeli leader’s peace initiative with the Palestinians, has already served more than16 years because of his role in the assassination and was released three years ago. He was convicted of conspiracy to murder and various weapons charges. His brother, who carried out the actual killing alone, is serving a life sentence.
The Facebook posting was prompted by a statement by Rivlin on the recent anniversary of the killing that he would never pardon Yigal Amir as long as he was president.
"Rivlin is a sycophantic politician," wrote Hagai Amir in his post. "He cannot decide whether or not my brother is released. Only the Almighty decides. As He decided that Rabin would drop dead despite Rivlin and his friends not really agreeing, the Almighty decided that Rivlin would be president. It’s time for Him to decide that Rivlin and the Zionist state must disappear from the world just as Sodom did because of the crime they ‘lawfully’ committed against their people. Today that day is no longer far away."
In seeking to bring down the "Zionist state," Amir seeks to replace it with a state based exclusively on Jewish law, just as Islamic jihadists seek to impose a state based on Islamic law. In their ideology, the Amir brothers represent a tiny fringe of Israeli society, not comparable in percentage to their Islamic counterparts.
Meanwhile, two Palestinian knife wielders who stabbed an Israeli soldier waiting for a lift on the West Bank were shot dead by security forces. The soldier was moderately wounded. Hours later, another attempt to stab a soldier in the area was foiled and the militant was shot dead.
Two Palestinian youths, aged 16 and17, were stopped in Jerusalem by a policeman who found an axe and knives in their bags. They were detained.
The army announced the arrest of a senior member of Hamas’ military wing on the
West Bank, Kais Sa’adi, who had been the object of a month-long manhunt, together with the capture of a high-ranking member of Islamic Jihad, Tair Jaradat. A large amount of weapons and ammunition was found at the site where the pair were hiding out. Earlier this month, soldiers had surrounded Sa’adi’s home but he managed to escape. Security forces are focusing on militant leaders who might be at the forefront of a new uprising.