- Rehavam "Ghandi" Zeevi was murdered just six
hours ago in the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem. At 6:45 AM, he sat with his
wife in the hotel's dining room having breakfast. He told his wife that
there was someone there staring at him suspiciously, in fact, he wouldn't
take his eyes off him.
-
- The couple's room, which was his permanent residence
while the Knesset was in session, was at the end of the eighth floor hall,
opposite the fire escape stairs. The assassin waited by the stairs until
Zeevi arrived, pumped two shots into his head, ran down the stairs, and
out the hotel where a vehicle rushed him to Ramallah within ten minutes.
The PFLP (Front For The Liberation Of Palestine) quickly took responsibility
for the murder.
-
- That is about all that has been reported so far...but
it's enough to start asking questions.
-
- 1. Two days before, Zeevi, the Tourism Minister in the
Sharon government, resigned, taking with him Infrastructure Minister Avigdor
Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu faction. The resignations were to take
effect at 1:30 PM that day. Thus, Zeevi had a contingent of Shabak bodyguards
attached to him, assigned to protect a government cabinet minister.
-
- So where were they? When Zeevi spotted a suspicious character
at breakfast, why didn't the Shabak check his identity before he could
inform the assassin that his quarry was on the way? When the Zeevis went
to their room, why were they unprotected? When they left their room before
breakfast, why wasn't a guard posted outside their door? Why could the
fire escape door opposite a minister's room be opened from the stairs side?
Why could the escape car wait outside the minister's hotel without arousing
suspicion?
-
- And who knew the minister's routine well enough to provide
exact intelligence to the hit squad? Someone inside the hotel perhaps,
the bodyguards for sure.
-
- To answer all these questions, the Shabak will claim,
as they did after the Rabin assassination, that there was a massive screwup,
and that Zeevi didn't want his bodyguards near him, as if he had a say
in the matter. But we won't believe them this time, will we?
-
-
- 2. Let's look at the timing. Two days before, Zeevi
threatened to resign unless Sharon fired Shimon Peres as Foreign Minister
and provided real IDF protection for Hebron's Jews. Sharon refused and
Zeevi quit. The next day, Sharon announced that he would be leading upcoming
negotiations with the PLO. However, with Moledet and Yisrael Beiteinu out,
Sharon's mandate to conduct such negotiations was severely compromised.
The Jerusalem Post lead editorial on the morning of the assassination asked
if Zeevi and Lieberman's departures were the beginning of the end for Sharon's
government.
-
-
- 3. Post-murder reactions - Two cabinet ministers, Dahlia
Itzik and Dan Meridor both echoed the same line: Israel must not over-react
to the assassination. Two hours later, both Moledet and Yisrael Beiteinu
rejoined Sharon's government. Zeevi would not have approved but then again,
he really didn't have a say anymore.
-
- 4. The big winners - Shimon Peres stays on as Foreign
Minister. Sharon survives as prime minister. Arafat gets his terror state
soon. The outsiders who foisted Oslo on Israel can rest easy knowing Israel's
path to destruction will continue as planned.
-
- 5. The conclusion - Anyone who challenges the "peace"
process from within will die. Rehavam Zeevi joins the elite legion of the
brave along with Mota Gur, Eliahu Ben Elissar and Yitzhak Rabin.
|