To kill the Peace

My first significant mediated experience occurred on November 4, 1995. I was about ten years old at the time and I remember the moment my mother told me about the murder of Yitzhak Rabin’s, Israel’s prime minister at the time. My first instinctive reaction was: “is the murderer a terrorist?”
Image from orianit1.edu-negev.gov.il
One can only imagine my shock when I found out, seconds later, that the murder was a Jewish Israeli.

At the time of the incident I was asleep and when Rabin’s death was officially announced, my mother woke me up and told me the upsetting news. As I turned on the T.V thousands of conflicting reports were being
broadcast on the different channels. Some reported that Rabin was still alive and in a state of coma; others reported about the suspected murderer; while other channels showed images from the scene; some broadcasted interviews with witness that were present at the location or interviews with Rabin’s driver, doctor, family members etc.

Yitzhak Rabin assassination was captured on live camera since it occurred immediately after Rabin’s speech for peace in a massive Peace Rally labelled “Yes for Peace No for Violence”. However, due to surrounding security guards and the mass protestors around him, the camera failed to clearly capture Rabin actually being shot. This later became the source for conspiracy speculations a murder inflected by a governmental organization.
Every medium was covering the story for a very long time. The reports appeared on television, newspapers; Internet; radio and even international news. Presidents from around the world, including Bill Clinton, U.S president at the time, expressed their deep distress and condolences. Clinton parted from Rabin at the funeral with the words: " Shakom Haver" (Farewell thee my friend) which later became a slogan and a sticker that the Peace Process followers adopted.

Image from ofakim.wordpress.com

At the time of the assassination Rabin was at the doorstep of signing the peace agreement with Palestinians. Some claim that his murderer killed the chance for peace when he shot Yitzhak.
Within minutes or few hours a group of communication (Hanson page 8), the peace rally, turned, mostly by the media, to a worldwide mass communication.

For several days the media constantly broadcasted images from the scene and interviews of witness as well as the coverage of the funeral. Then the media started reporting news concerning the murderer, Yigal’s Amir, trail, followed by an enormous number of interviews with the murderer’s cooperators and his family members. Each year on Rabin's memorial day ' November 5th, a huge crowd gathers at the site of the murder' and is followed by a Peace Rally. In a while books were published about Rabin’s life story, as well as stories about the assassination and conspiracies. Finally, streets and squares were named after Rabin.

As a 10 years old, and even today, one of the most meaningful images I remember was a paper with the lyrics of the “song for peace” Rabin carried in his shirt’s pocket. Rabin sang this song at the rally just before he came down from the stage, minutes before he was shot. The paper got covered with his blood:
http://www.guyp.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/rabin-shir-lashalom.jpg
The media presented this image over and over again. At the time it made me realize that politicians are as vulnerable as every one of us. The impact of a murder of a Prime Minister can change the course of History. Looking back in retrospective I can now truly grasp the magnitude of this event and the affect it had and still has on Israel as a country. At the time of the event the media used almost every available meduim channel (Hanson page 11) to transmit the news. However, I believe that if the assassination would had occured in today's society, new medium's tools like twitter of facebook would widen the audience to include younger more reponsive audience.