Yigal Amir

Yigal Amir (Hebrew: יגאל עמיר‎‎; born May 23, 1970) is an Israeli who assassinated Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place on November 4, 1995, at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv. Amir is serving a life sentence for murder plus six years for injuring Rabin's bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, under aggravating circumstances.^[1] He was later sentenced to an additional 8 years for conspiracy to murder.

Early life

Yigal Amir was born in Herzliya to an Israeli Orthodox Yemenite Jewish family, one of eight children. His father, Shlomo, was a sofer, and held a post supervising the kosher slaughtering of chickens. He also taught Shabbat lessons at a local synagogue. His mother, Geula, was a kindergarten teacher, and ran a nursery school in family home's backyard. Amir attended a Haredi elementary school in Herzliya, and a high school yeshiva in Tel Aviv. He did his military service in the Israel Defense Forces as a Hesder student, combining army service in a religious platoon of the Golani Brigade with religious study at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. Despite being in a religious unit, even his comrades considered him a religious fanatic.^[2]

Following his military service, Amir was nominated by the religious-Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva to teach Judaism in Riga, Latvia, as part of Nativ.^[2]

In 1993, Amir began studying at Bar-Ilan University as part of its kollel program, mixing religious and secular studies. Amir studied law and computer science, as well as Jewish law at the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies.^[2][3] Amir was heavily opposed to the Oslo Accords. He participated in protest rallies against the accords on campus, was active in organizing weekend bus outings to support Israeli settlers, and helped found an illegal settlement outpost. He was especially active in Hebron, where he led marches through the streets.^[2][4]

During his years as an activist, Amir became friendly with Avishai Raviv, to whom he revealed his plan to kill Rabin. While Raviv posed as a right-wing radical, he was working for Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service. Some rightists have accused the Shin Bet of having orchestrated the assassination to discredit them. ^[5]

In 1994, during his university studies, Amir met and began a relationship with Nava Holtzman, a law student from an Orthodox Ashkenazi family. In January 1995, after five months, Holtzman ended the relationship after her parents objected due to Amir's Mizrahi background.^[2] She married one of his friends soon afterwards. Amir, who attended the wedding, went into a deep depression.

Assassination

The monument at the site of the assassination: Ibn Gabirol Street, between Tel Aviv City Hall and Gan Ha'ir

On November 4, 1995, after a demonstration in Tel Aviv's Kings of Israel Square (now Rabin Square) in support of the Oslo Accords, Amir waited for Rabin in a parking lot adjacent to the square, close to Rabin's official limousine. There he shot Rabin twice with a Beretta 84F .380 ACP caliber semi-automatic pistol and injured Yoram Rubin, a security guard, with a third shot. Amir was immediately seized by Rabin's bodyguards. Rabin was rushed to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center where he died on an operating table 40 minutes later of blood loss and a punctured lung. According to the court, Yigal Amir's brother Hagai and his friend Dror Adani were his accomplices in the assassination plan.

Upon hearing that Yitzhak Rabin was dead, Amir told the police he was "satisfied".^[6] At his trial, Amir said he did not care if the outcome was death or paralysis as long as Rabin was "out of the way". He expressed no regret for his actions.^[1]

Failed attempts

The assassination was preceded by three unsuccessful attempts that same year: at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, at the Nof Yerushalayim Hotel and a ceremony inaugurating a highway in Kfar Shmaryahu.^[1] These plans fell through moments before implementation.^[7][8]

Trial

The trial lasted from January 23 to March 27, 1996. Amir was defended by two court-appointed attorneys, Gabi Shachar and Shmuel Flishman, in addition to Yonatan Ray Goldberg and Mordechai Ofri, who represented him earlier in the trial. The judges ordered a mental examination by three district psychiatrists and a clinical psychiatrist who all agreed that Amir understood the meaning of his actions and was fit to stand trial.^[1]

Despite attempts to defend his actions on religious grounds, Amir was found guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment plus six additional years in prison for injuring the bodyguard. In the verdict, the three judges wrote:

Every murder is an abominable act, but the act before us is more abominable sevenfold, because not only has the accused not expressed regret or sorrow, but he also seeks to show that he is at peace with himself over the act that he perpetrated. He who so calmly cuts short another's life, only proves the depth of wretchedness to which [his] values have fallen, and thus he does not merit any regard whatsoever, except pity, because he has lost his humanity.^[9]

Amir's action was condemned by Bar-Ilan University. A professor of Talmud at the university, Daniel Sperber, said that this act "in no way represents the university or the policy of the university".^[10]

Amir's claim that he was acting in accordance with Jewish law was rejected by the judges: "The attempt to grant religious authority to the murder...is completely inappropriate and amounts to cynical exploitation of Jewish law for goals that are alien to Judaism."^[1]

Amir was later sentenced to an additional five years, and after an appeal on behalf of the state, eight years, for conspiring to commit the assassination with his brother Hagai Amir and Dror Adani. All of the sentences were cumulative. In Israel, a sentence of life imprisonment is usually reduced to a period of 20–30 years by the president, with the possibility of further reduction for good behavior. However, President Moshe Katsav did not reduce the sentence, saying that there is "no forgiveness, no absolution, and no pardon" for Yigal Amir.^[11] Present Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have also said that Yigal Amir will never be released from prison.^[12]

On December 19, 2001, the Knesset by majority of 62 members approved the Yigal Amir Law, which prohibits a parole board from recommending pardon or shortening time in prison for a murderer of a Prime Minister. In the discussion that ensued, it was hoped the law would prevent another political murder.

Prison conditions

Amir was held in solitary confinement in Beersheba's Eshel Prison, and moved in 2003 to the Ayalon Prison in Ramla. In 2006, he was transferred to Rimonim Prison near Netanya. He was also granted the privileges of having no surveillance cameras in his cell, the right to receive visitors in the visiting room, rather than in his cell, and the right to speak with other prisoners.^[13] Amir was interviewed by the Israeli press in 2008, but the planned broadcast was controversial, and subsequently cancelled. As punishment for giving the interview, Amir was moved to Ramon Prison, and had a number of privileges withdrawn, including the removal of his TV and DVD player and the refusal of family visits; Amir went on a hunger strike in protest.^[14] In February 2010, the Nazareth District Court permitted the Ynet internet news service to interview Amir.^[15]

In July 2010, after 15 years of solitary confinement, Amir appealed to the Petah Tikva District Court to be permitted to participate in group prayers in accordance to Jewish law. He claimed that the terms of his imprisonment were worse than any other prisoner in the history of the State of Israel, on the grounds that no other prisoner had been in solitary for this amount of time. He said that failure to allow him to pray in synagogue would be a violation of his right to freedom of worship.^[16] In August 2010, the court ruled that Amir would be allowed to meet another prisoner for prayer three times a week, and that he would be allowed to study Torah with another prisoner once every two weeks.^[17][18]

In July 2012, it was announced that Amir would be released from solitary confinement. Under his new prison conditions, he will be allowed to watch television and use a phone more frequently. Though he will not be moved to an open cell block, where prisoners are allowed to spend most of the day outside their cells, he will be allowed to meet other prisoners during his two hours' exercise in the prison yard.^[19]

Campaigns for Amir's release

Amir's appeals of both sentences were rejected. Subsequently, a law was passed by the Knesset barring the pardon by the President of Israel for any assassin of a prime minister. Amir has never expressed regret for his actions.^[6] Since 2007, the Amir family and the "Committee for Democracy" campaigned to release Yigal and Hagai Amir. The campaign includes statements for the media, stickers, posters, and short films.

From time to time, radical Israeli right-wing organizations carry out campaigns (via posters or videos) which call for the release of Yigal Amir and his brother Hagai. Such a campaign was held in October 2007 in which the prominent Israeli singer Ariel Zilber also participated. In response to this campaign, the Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter stated: "This man is in the closest status a person can be to a death sentence", and also added that, "A reduction of his sentence is impossible and illogical, and it will surely accompany him until he would pass away".^[20]

Personal life

Larisa Trembovler

Amir's wife Larisa Trembovler was born in Russia. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has published a novel in Russian (A Mirror for a Prince) and is an Orthodox Jew. She met Amir in Latvia, where he was teaching Judaism. After her immigration to Israel, she visited Amir with her then husband, Benjamin (with whom she has four children), for humanitarian reasons. She expressed ideological support for Amir, and they began to correspond and speak on the phone. She divorced Benjamin in 2003.^[21]

Trembovler announced that she was engaged to Amir and wanted to marry him while he was in jail. In January 2004, after their request was filed, the Israel Prisons Service declared it would not permit the marriage. In April 2004, the matter was brought before the Tel Aviv District Court. At the time, the Prisons Commissioner instructed his legal aides to defend the decision based on security considerations. But Amir's lawyers said this claim violated their client's basic rights and would not hold up in court. They noted that several Palestinians serving multiple life terms for crimes such as murder have been permitted to marry in prison. Legal analysts have said the Supreme Court would likely uphold any appeal by Amir's lawyer, unless specific legislation is enacted prohibiting him from marrying. In August 2004, Trembovler and Amir were wed in a surreptitious proxy marriage. Under Jewish law, a prospective husband can grant a form of "power of attorney" to a chosen representative, who can then transfer a wedding ring, or something of similar value, to the prospective wife. In July 2005, their marriage was validated by an Israeli rabbinical court. Trembovler submitted a petition after the Interior Ministry refused to register her and Amir as a married couple. Israel's Justice Ministry defined Amir's marriage as "problematic" because according to a past ruling, a marriage ceremony not conducted in the presence of a rabbi from the Chief Rabbinate is unrecognized.^[22]

Conjugal visits and artificial insemination

On February 6, 2006, Haaretz reported that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz had ordered the Interior Ministry to register Amir and Trembovler as a married couple. They then filed requests with the Prison Authority and petitions to court to enable them to hold conjugal visits or conceive a child through artificial insemination.^[23]

In March 2006 the Israeli Prison Service approved Amir's petition for in vitro fertilization. The service was to study how this process would be conducted without Amir leaving the prison. A week later, Amir was caught handing a pre-prepared bag of semen to his wife and the visit was terminated.^[24][25] After the incident a disciplinary tribunal barred visits from his wife for 30 days and phone calls for 14 days.^[26] He was fined NIS 100 (then US$21). When the treatments were withheld due to a petition by several members of Knesset, Yigal Amir refused to eat. After being warned that hunger strikes are in violation of prison regulations, some of his privileges were canceled.^[27] The IVF treatments were stopped after several members of the Knesset submitted a petition. Amir responded by going on hunger strike.

Up until October 20, 2006, the Shin Bet security service had opposed unsupervised visits.^[28] Four days later, Amir was allowed a 10-hour-long conjugal visit. Five months later, it was reported that Trembovler was pregnant.^[29] On October 28, 2007, she gave birth to a son, who was named Yinon Eliya Shalom. The brit milah was held in prison on November 4, 2007, the 12th anniversary of Rabin's assassination.^[30]

In popular culture

On July 8, 2015, a documentary on Yigal Amir, Beyond the Fear, was premiered in Jerusalem. The film explored the thorny drama of the Moscow-born intellectual Larisa Trembovler, who married assassin Yigal Amir after he was sentenced to life in prison and, following a court battle for a conjugal visit, gave birth to their son in 2007. The late filmmaker Herz Frank, who died in 2013, spent about 10 years following Trembovler, receiving unprecedented access to her and their son, Yinon. Rabin's granddaughter called the film a "cynical use of the freedom of expression".

Further reading

• Karpin, Michael and Friedman, Ina. (1998) Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin. Granta Books. ISBN 0-8050-5749-8.
• Ephron, Dan. (2015) Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393242096.

References

External links

• Excerpts of the State of Israel vs. Yigal Amir, March 27, 1996
• (in Hebrew) Yigal Amir vs. the Prison Authority at the Supreme Court of Justice, August 8, 1999
• (in Hebrew) Yigal Amir, Hagai Amir and Dror Adani vs. the State of Israel at the Supreme Court, August 29, 1999
• (in Hebrew) Yigal Amir vs. the Prison Authority at the Supreme Court of Justice, November 8, 2004
• Yigal Amir at NNDB

Further reading

• Women Who Love Men Who Kill by Sheila Isenberg, Paperback