                      The Day the Music Died
                         April 11, 1991
                      by Gary M. Cooperberg

     The government of Yitzchak Rabin, from its very first moment in office, has taken
steps to systematically demonize all Jews living in Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip and the
Golan Heights.  The new attorney general actually called all of these people rebels... a concept
which the foreign minister declared to be governmental policy.  Although, after conferring
with leaders of the YESHA council, the attorney general withdrew his accusation, the damage
was already done.
     Rabin, in cooperation with a sympathetic press, expressed scorn for popular
dissatisfaction with his policies.  When a demonstration of nearly 500,000 Jews took place in
Jerusalem, not only were the numbers of participants grossly underestimated, but the peaceful
demonstration was violently broken up by brutal police attacks.  Further, the prime minister
scornfully announced that it matters not how many people oppose his policies, the
demonstrators can spin around like propellers and he will never heed their voice.
     The handwriting was already on the wall, but few, if any, took serious notice.  Even
today, as the Israeli government has dealt a death blow to democracy, the silence is deafening.  

     While the fact of a brutal act of terror, committed by an individual who was acting
alone, clearly shocked the world, it, by no stretch of the imagination, was cause to give the
government of Israel carte blanche to arbitrarily deny the right of freedom of expression to all
of its citizens.  
     Using the same demonization tactics it had already employed against Jewish returnees
to Judea and Samaria, it went a step further... a step which crossed all red lines.  It unearthed
its martyred foe, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who, after being buried for three years, still cannot rest
in peace, and blamed him for the "Hebron massacre"!  To appease Arafat and Clinton, Rabin
decided to punish the murdered rabbi by "breaking the bones" of anyone or any organization
which might have had some connection to Kahane.  This includes the discussion of forbidding
American Jews, who supported Rabbi Kahane in the United States, from immigrating to Israel
by excluding such Jews from their inherent right established by the Law of Return.
     Both the Kach and Kahane Chai movements had already been denied their democratic
rights to run for Knesset.  Moreover they were pathetically impotent, financially and
politically, and had never been accused or convicted of perpetrating anything remotely
connected to terror.  These movements became the first victims of the Rabin government's
murder of democracy in Israel.  Those who fool themselves into believing that this is merely a
necessary exception in order to "save" democracy are unwitting co-conspirators to its demise.  Already in effect as part and parcel of this archaic "anti terror ordinance" is the right of
law enforcement agencies to arrest any group it deems dangerous.  Thus any three or more
individual citizens who gather for the purpose of political discussion are in danger of being
persecuted and imprisoned at the whim of the government!  This ordinance allows for the
punishment of anyone who contributes money to, or praises, verbally or in writing, any
outlawed terrorist movement.
     One cannot help but wonder why Shimon Peres hasn't been charged with raising huge
sums of money for the PLO which is still termed a terrorist organization along with Kach and
Kahane Chai, or Rabin chastised for verbally praising Arafat.
     The hallmark of democracy... its weak point which, in fact, gives it its strength... is the
right of the individual to freedom of expression.   It is this very aspect of freedom which,
although inherently dangerous, enables justice and fair play to shine through.  Once the elite
few are permitted to violate this uncomfortable freedom, even in exceptional cases, the evil
forces of despotism will have won a major battle over democracy.
     On Sunday, March 13, 1994, exactly six months after having shaken hands with the
Devil incarnate, Yitzchak Rabin plunged the State of Israel into an abyss of darkness and
immorality by taking the right of freedom of expression from the people of Israel, and
beginning a witch hunt in order to silence any person or group that the present government
deems an obstacle to its warped interpretation of peace.  The political assassination of
democracy has taken place and few, if any, seem to have noticed.