ABSTRACT
The image of Yitzhak Rabin and his assassination were virtually absent from the election campaign of 1999. Barak apparently believed that evoking the assassination would help Netanyahu mobilize the “right,” as the memory of Rabin became a symbol of the cultural community called “the left” (Riklin-Shapira, 2004; Kim, 1997). However, the spirit of a “return to his path” floated in the air thanks to the new discourse of tolerant “togetherness” developed by university students in their strike (see Chapter 7), and this was spun by the Barak campaign machine into slogans such as “A Government of All the People.” As election day neared, Rabin’s image began to resurface. And when the election results were announced, huge signs were held aloft featuring Rabin’s picture, and tens of thousands flocked to the plaza where he had been killed and that now bore his name (YA, HA, and MA, 18 May 1999).
