ABSTRACT
The signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (DOP) in September 1993 reawakened a dormant ambivalence regarding Israeli identity. Awareness of this dilemma, initially confined mainly to intellectuals, has spread as the peace process proceeded. With the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on 4 November 1995, it has become a malaise of the public at large. Due to the killing of nearly 200 Israelis in a string of suicide bombings following the signing of the DOP, by the time of his assassination Rabin had lost much of the popular support which had brought him to power in 1992; 1 yet the peace process has not been seriously jeopardized by the assassination. It would seem that the shock and general mourning exhibited by most Israelis expressed not merely grief over the loss of a statesman, or fear of a renewed confrontation with the Palestinians. It also revealed the realization that the social consensus had been disrupted and that this could no longer be ignored.
