Historical account of 1992 Israeli election politics following a Gaza stabbing

including a kindergarten teacher, in Jerusalem. On the morning of May 24, 1992, a 15-year-old Israeli schoolgirl named Helena Rapp was on her way to catch the bus to school south of Tel Aviv, when another Gazan stabbed her to death. To the extent Israelis were looking for someone to blame, there were obvious candidates. The army, the primary defense against the intifada, was one. The police even more so, since many of the attacks were now taking place inside Israel. And in ugly rioting after Helena Rapp’s murder, bands of Israelis took to the streets, some of them yelling: “Death to the Arabs’. Still, most people understood that criticizing the army or the police, or going on a rampage against “the Arabs” — hundreds of thousands of whom were Israeli citizens and had lived among us since the birth of the state — would not help. Most, in fact, placed the blame, and lodged their hopes, with the government. By the time of the next election, in June 1992, the combination of Palestinian violence and the still-traumatic memories of Saddam’s Scuds, left Israelis doubtful that Shamir could fulfil the most basic responsibility of government: ensuring their day-to-day security. Labor had once again placed its electoral fortunes in the hands of Yitzhak Rabin, following Peres’s several failed attempts to lead the party back into power. Knowing that Rabin had a record of military command unmatched in Israeli politics, Labor strategists did not so much need to convince voters as to reinforce their fears and frustrations. One of the campaign slogans, a direct appeal to the anger over the stabbing of Helena Rapp, was “Get Gaza out of Tel Aviv!” Labor ended up gaining five Knesset seats, and now had 44. The Likud lost eight and was left with only 32. That meant that my last three years as chief of staff would be with Rabin back as Prime Minister — and, like Ben-Gurion before him, as Defense Minister as well. He and I had been in touch only occasionally since his departure from the unity-coalition government two years earlier. But I had, of course, spoken with him after my appointment as ramatkal, in which he’d played an important part. Though he was 20 years older than me, our relationship had become steadily closer over the years, especially when I’d worked with him as Defense Minister. In some ways, we were alike. We’d both been forged by Labor Zionism. We were career military officers, uncomfortable with flights of political rhetoric and convinced that Israel’s security and its future depended less on words than on action. In large groups especially, both of us tended to be men of a few words. Over the next few years, we would become even closer, speaking not only in the kirya or at Yitzhak’s office in Jerusalem, but also, with Nava and Leah, around the dinner table at Rabin’s apartment in Tel Aviv. 244 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028092