ISRAEL yesterday marked the first anniversary of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin with state ceremonies in the Knesset and at the former prime minister's grave. And like many of the speakers at those ceremonies, Israelis asked themselves how they had allowed opposition to Mr Rabin's peace policies to drag their country into political assassination. They also asked if enough had been done in the past 12 months to prevent its recurrence.
For Mr Yonathan Ben Artzi, the late prime minister's grandson, speaking to hundreds of dignitaries beside Mr Rabin's grave on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, the answer to that last question was an unequivocal no. "I want to apologise to you, grandfather," he said. "A year has passed and it seems as though nothing has changed - nothing has changed. ,We have not woken from the nightmare."
As Mr Ben Artzi spoke, his grandmother, Mrs Leah Rabin, seated in the front row of those present, looked on with an expression of the deepest sorrow. Three seats to her right sat Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. A year ago, he was the opposition leader whom she blamed for fomenting the atmosphere that led to the murder of her husband.
After much behind the scenes' debate and argument, it had been decided that Mr Netanyahu (would speak, not at the graveside, but in the Knesset. He gave a stirring address, praising Rabin as a "unifying" figure, a man who could "bridge the differences" among the Israeli people. Mr Netanyahu pledged to devote himself to healing the deep divisions in Israel, to "bringing peace at home". Mrs Rabin sat stony faced in the public gallery through this address.
To the fury of many of the late prime minister's relatives and supporters, Mr Netanyahu's government decided not to declare an annual day of mourning in Rabin's memory. Just an hour was set aside in schools yesterday for special lessons relating to the implications of his murder a killing carried out by a fellow countryman, a professed Orthodox Jew, who cited Jewish religious law as justification for his deed and argued that the prime minister was abandoning Jews to their enemies by relinquishing land for peace with the Palestinians.
Few in Israel labour under the illusion that this murderous opposition to reconciliation has disappeared in the past 12 months. And the events of the anniversary period have only underlined the abiding hatreds and the dangers the boiling tea thrown in the face of a left wing Knesset member by an Orthodox Jew in Hebron; the conviction of a senior army officer for lecturing recruits in praise (of the assassin, Yigal Amir the re emergence of a right wing extremist who placed a Talmudic curse of death on Rabin with a new campaign in praise of Amir and the relentless stream of death threats against leading public figures.
Some of these threats are now being directed toward Mr Netanyahu, as he stands on the brink of approving the next phase of the peace process with the Palestinians, Israel's military withdrawal from Hebron. Anonymous fazes to his office now brand him a traitor and predict his murder.
In his Knesset speech President Ezer Weizman lamented that Israel had been deluded about the strength of its democracy, about no Jew ever sinking so low as to murder a fellow Jew, let alone a prime minister.
"Can we be sure it won't happen again?" asked the Speaker of the House, Mr Dan Tichon. Then he answered himself by imploring the watching nation, one year after Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, to "return to its senses".