The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Israeli Election of 1996
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally on November 4, 1995, in Tel Aviv’s Kings of Israel Square. Rabin was walking to his car after the rally when he was shot by right-winger Yigal Amir. Rabin died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Amir confessed to the assassination and was reported to have told investigators, “I acted alone on God’s orders and I have no regrets.”
The Jerusalem Post reported the news the following day with the headline “Rabin Assassinated,” while CNN said “Rabin Assassinated at Peace Rally.” The Associated Press reported on the assassination with the headline “Rabin Killed by Assassin’s Bullets.” The shots that killed Rabin were captured on Channel 2, which was broadcasting live from the event. Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, President Bill Clinton said that the world had lost a great leader. He called Rabin a “martyr for his nation’s peace.” The assassination of the prime minister and the election that followed six months later were of profound significance to both Israeli politics and the media.
The election took place during a moment of acute national soul-searching over the peace process in Israel, and it was also a litmus test for electoral reform. Under new rules, it marked the first time Israelis would vote directly for prime minister as well as for new members of Parliament. In previous elections, the prime minister was chosen by the party or coalition with the most votes. The effect of the 1996 vote was to personalize the race between candidates and introduce characteristics usually seen in American elections.
The Israeli election was held in an era prior to the existence of social media and showed how a relatively small media sector and negative campaigning from one side played on fears over national security. The tragedy of Rabin’s death, instead of contributing to a campaign rooted in tolerance, influenced an acrimonious election period that came to frame the role of Israeli security in the minds of voters in subsequent election cycles.
In the two years before Rabin’s assassination, there had been encouraging prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. In September 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords, the first stage in establishing a Palestinian state.1 In September 1995, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Rabin signed the Israeli-Palestine Interim Agreement. It allowed the PLO’s leadership to return to the occupied territories—Arafat was living in Tunis, after his expulsion from both Jordan and Lebanon—and set out a framework for future talks about Palestinian final status. In return the PLO promised to abstain from employing terrorism and withdrew its call for the elimination of Israel and the expulsion of all Jews who migrated after 1917.2
The Oslo Accords, however, prompted a wave of terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups like Hamas, which sought to inflame the Israeli public and jeopardize the agreements. Despite Rabin’s reputation as a military hero, Israeli society was divided over Labor’s negotiations with the Palestinian leadership and with Syria. When the second Oslo agreement was presented to the Knesset, in October 1995, it was approved by only one vote. Opinion polls showed Israeli society was split between those agreeing with Labor’s policies and those who feared a withdrawal from the West Bank or the Golan Heights would undermine security. The accords also ignited a groundswell of animosity from right-wing Israelis, who believed Rabin intended to give the Palestinians sovereignty and evacuate Israeli settlements.
As the debate around the Oslo Accords grew acrimonious, the atmosphere in Israel became more charged: Rabin’s most militant detractors called him a “traitor.”3 Large protests in the summer of 1995 erupted in violence, and hundreds of Jewish settlers in the West Bank were arrested for their role in a civil disobedience campaign against the withdrawal of Israeli troops from areas to be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. Around 1,000 reserve soldiers and officers pledged to ignore orders to remove Jewish settlements.
Rabin’s death convulsed Israeli society. He was replaced by the newly nominated Shimon Peres, who, as the country mourned, polled 30 percent ahead of his rival, Likud’s relatively inexperienced Benjamin Netanyahu. Three months after the assassination, Peres called for a May election instead of waiting for Labor’s term to expire in October.4 Peres calculated he would return to office with a mandate that would strengthen both Oslo and upcoming discussions with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad about the occupation of the Golan Heights.5
A number of factors, however, chipped away at Peres’s lead: his age, the perception he was too accommodating of Palestinian demands, and Likud accusations that he was moving too quickly on peace negotiations steadily eroded his numbers. According to one poll, over 40 percent of undecided voters believed Peres put the State of Israel at risk, compared to 16 percent who believed the same of Netanyahu.
Fallout from Israeli-targeted killings of Palestinian figures also took its toll on the Peres campaign. The leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shikaki, had been killed in Malta in October 1995 in an operation conducted by Israeli intelligence agencies. In January 1996, Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas bomb-maker known as “The Engineer,” was assassinated.6 The death of Ayyash, a key figure from Hamas, would end a six-month lull, and four bombings over the next two months killed more than 50 Israelis. The attacks began in February 1996 when suicide bombers exploded pipe bombs in Jerusalem and Ashkelon.7
News organizations were told the attacks were revenge for the death of Ayyash. While Netanyahu asked members of Likud to refrain from anti-government protests, dozens of demonstrators jeered Peres when he arrived at the site of the Jerusalem bombing. “With blood and fire we'll get rid of Peres,” they chanted.8 The violence led to intense public criticism of Oslo, and of the ineffectiveness of the government's responses. Headlines like “The Terror Returns” (Jerusalem Post, February 26, 1996) and “Peres: ‘Many people in Israel want to murder ministers’” (Jerusalem Post, February 21, 1996) were typical.
The violence created a national mood of fear and uncertainty, which successfully manipulated the responses of both the media and politicians. While Peres campaigned as a leader, Netanyahu electioneered as a right-wing critic. The most striking aspect of the campaign was Labor’s decision not to use the assassination of Rabin as both an endorsement of Peres and the peace process. Labor’s platform, instead, proposed a mature outlook on security and a commitment to Oslo, “aiming at the cessation of the Arab-Israeli conflict by the year 2000.” Peres also promised the vision of a “New Middle East” based on “a common market with regional irrigation, tourism, transport and communication systems, and cooperation in the fields of culture and science.”
In contrast, Likud’s right-wing platform played to security concerns: Jewish settlements would be strengthened and Labor’s settlement freeze would be scrapped. Negotiations with Arab states would be defined by security as “as a first condition in any peace agreement.”
The different political responses impacted both the media and opinion polls. Newspapers were full of shrill headlines of new threats and foiled terrorist plots, and TV news showed the bloody aftermaths of bombings. One study, “Agenda Building, Agenda Setting, Priming, Individual Voting Intentions and Aggregate Results: An Analysis of Four Israeli Elections” by Tamir Sheafer and Gabriel Weimann, shows news about security made up 79.5 percent of election coverage. Ahead of the election, Israel announced it would stop all Palestinians from leaving the West Bank or Gaza with the exception of a few officials and the seriously ill. The fears of violence chipped away at Peres and Labor. Polls published in February 1996 showed both Peres and Netanyahu at 48 percent; a month later, Netanyahu was leading by three percent.
“When Rabin was assassinated, Peres had a twenty-point lead and Netanyahu was seen indirectly responsible for the assassination,” said Gadi Wolfsfeld, Head of Graduate Program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in an interview. “No one predicted that Netanyahu had a chance of winning. Terrorism came back into the agenda and Peres was seen as weak on terrorism. We always say that negative advertising is more effective than positive messaging. If you talk about peace like Peres did, there is nothing newsworthy there. If Netanyahu says Peres is soft on terrorism, then terrorism is more likely to get coverage.”
Unlike the elections analyzed below, the modern media landscape in Israel in 1996 was in its infancy and dominated by a handful of outlets. For years, the sole TV broadcaster, Channel 1, had operated under the state-owned Israel Broadcasting Authority. The station lost its monopoly in 1990 when the commercial Channel 2 was launched.9 Like the boom in satellite channels in India, which impacted how the Mumbai attacks were covered, the launch of the more commercially and editorially aggressive Channel 2 was widely regarded as a foil to the staid Channel 1. The leading English language newspaper was The Jerusalem Post; Israel’s leading Hebrew newspapers included the two tabloids Yediot Aharonot and Maariv, along with Haaretz.
“The election of 1996 was a unique media event,” said Claude Berrebi, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Hebrew University’s School of Public Policy, in an interview. “There were few channels and everyone saw the same thing. At that time, it was customary to show everything. If you look at the recent coverage of the attacks in France, you sense there was a conscious decision not to show too much blood. On the one hand, if you are a democracy, you want to be able for people to see what terrorism does. Yet clearly those pictures also have a traumatic effect on the nation. Going back to 1996, seeing all those people blown away on buses had an effect on the electorate. Nowadays, the media is more conservative.”
Israelis were avid news consumers—in a survey of Jewish adults before the 1996 election, 8 percent said they read more than one newspaper every day, 45 percent said they read one paper every day, and 20 percent said they read a newspaper two or three times a week. TV news was just as popular, with around 50 to 60 percent saying they watched a news show every evening. Another study reveals that television devoted a great deal of airtime to the election in 1996. In one report, media analysis of TV coverage in April and May showed both Channel 1 and Channel 2 broadcast a total 627 stories on the election. Of those, 60 percent aired on Channel 1 and 40 percent were broadcast on Channel 2.10
Unsurprisingly, the election also dominated newspaper coverage. The same study, an analysis of Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, and Haaretz over the same period, shows Yediot Aharonot (50 percent) published more election-focused articles than Maariv (43 percent) and Haaretz (26 percent). The study also reveals the election of 1996 had an interesting effect on candidate criticism. The state-owned Channel 1 generally avoided criticism of both parties: Only 7.8 percent of its coverage was critical of Labor and 8.3 percent critical of Likud. The commercial Channel 2 was both less balanced and more aggressive: 12.5 percent of its coverage was critical of Labor, compared with 20.7 percent for Likud.
One key development in the election was the decision to hold a moderated television debate between Peres and Netanyahu on May 27, two days before polling.11 While TV debates had been conducted before, the direct election of the prime minister’s role in 1996 allowed for a more personalized and less controlled environment, with moderator Dan Margalit posing questions to both candidates. It also conferred equal status between the experienced and statesmanlike Peres and the untested and aggressive Netanyahu.
The debate focused on security, Oslo, negotiations with Arafat, and Syria. Peres reiterated the importance of ongoing negotiations with Israel’s neighbors, but appeared ill at ease with the format, reluctant to engage with the event’s combative nature, and interested only in putting forward long, explanatory policy visions. Netanyahu, on the other hand, firmly directed his accusations at his opponent and seemed to relish the gladiatorial environment.
Press coverage of the debate was substantial over the next few days, and the Israeli press agreed that Netanyahu had won. In a long essay, a Jerusalem Post writer said, “It’s the best television feud since J.R. squared off against Cliff Barnes in Dallas, or Alexis took on Blake in Dynasty.” The same piece also contrasted the differences between both campaigns. Likud focused on voters’ fears of a divided Jerusalem. Labor ads emphasized Peres the statesman, showing him in the company of President Clinton.
Throughout the debate, Netanyahu doubled down on security. He said: “Mr Peres, you have brought our security situation to an unprecedented low. This is a direct result of your deplorable policy, which placed the war on terrorism and the security of our children in the hands of Arafat.” Peres was unconvincing in articulating his vision for what he described as “a new Middle East.” During the debate, he spoke of pride in hearing the Israeli national anthem being played in Oman and Qatar. But where he saw future economic ties, many Israelis saw only continuing danger. In an election already too close to call, Netanyahu’s win in the debate may have had a decisive impact.12 Viewership was high at 59 percent.
On May 29, 1996, the evening of the election, TV news anchors on Israeli television initially announced Peres had won the election by a two-point margin. However, during the long night that followed, this advantage disappeared.
On the morning of May 30, it became clear that power had switched hands. Netanyahu won the election by only 14,900 votes.13 A Los Angeles Times piece summed up the election with the headline, “Confidence and media savvy aided ‘Bibi.’” In a post-election analysis—headlined “What Went Wrong?”—a writer for The Jerusalem Report speculated the reasons for Labor’s defeat: “The terror attacks of late February and early March shattered public confidence in the peace process and destroyed [Peres’s] lead.”
The Israeli election of 1996 presents a number of valuable insights into how governments and media react when terrorism and tragedy exerts extreme pressures on campaigning. As one influential study, “Are voters sensitive to terrorism? Direct evidence from the Israeli electorate,”14 written by Claude Berrebi and Esteban Klor, shows, the occurrence of a terrorist fatality within three months of elections corresponds to an increase in support for a right bloc of parties. They find that the Israeli electorate increased its support for right-leaning parties after a terror attack because they were identified with placing a higher importance on deterrence. The authors, who studied elections from 1988 to 2003, also conclude that terrorism tends to persuade Israeli voters that moderate political factions are either unwilling or unable to stop terrorism.