ABSTRACT
The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Saturday night, November 4, 1995, was one of the most dramatic events that had ever occurred in Israeli history. The media is a major factor in the process of shaping the new Israeli identity, and therefore it held a crucial role in the aftermath of the assassination. Political ritual has important functions in re-asserting the political order that was damaged by the assassination. The murder of the supreme political authority generates a series of onerous political problems that impinge upon the very roots of government, the democratic political culture, and the normative system. The media responded to the assassination in ways that had significance for the definition of the collective identity, taking advantage of the event to crystallize that identity. This was done by promoting the political ritual surrounding Rabin, building the myth of the man who became a symbol in his death.
