4 November 2005, New York --
Citizen of the United States Stephen M. St. John calls to the attention of the international
community, members of the Congress of the USA and other individuals and organizations his unpublished article written six
years ago for the fourth-year anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Citizen St. John regrets that his concerns
about incitement for the violent overthrow of the Rabin government, which emanated from within the USA, have been ignored
for a full decade now. And in this long interval the international community has witnessed right here in the USA other
instances of incitement to commit crimes of violence going unchecked even though they clearly violate the law. For example,
the New York Times published op-ed writer Thomas Friedman's 6 November 1997 call for a "Head Shot" for Saddam Hussein.
And earlier this year, there was televangelist Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez
Frias. And, of course, topping the list is the psychopathic Zionist Neo-Con incitement for public support of their unjustified,
illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq by means of lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as well as
the BIG LIE about what actually happened on their "new Pearl Harbor" day of infamy, 11 September 2001.
As the world community remembers Yitzhak Rabin upon the passing of the 10th anniversary date of his death by assassination,
leaders here in the USA need either to dedicate or to rededicate themselves to the rule of law at home and abroad. Finally,
Citizen St. John invites readers to visit his web site, http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4wbps where, in the navigation bar under the heading PAT ROBERTSON: PART OF A REPUBLICAN MEAN STREAK, there is more information
on the topic of Rabin's assassination, including the above referenced article of 4 November 1999.
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[The unsolicited and unpublished 4 November 1999 article also appears right below.]
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OP-ED EDITOR,
THE NEW YORK TIMES
4 November 1999
Four years after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the full story
of what really happened remains to be told. The body of the warrior-turned-peacemaker was still warm when a number of
rabbis came under suspicion for having cited religious law necessitating the removal by violent force of a person such
as Rabin who would give away under any circumstances land that is "inalienably Jewish." And lately, an
Israeli dirty tricks security officer, said to have been tasked by the Rabin government to create embarrassing situations
attributable to the right wing opposition, is now on trial for failing to act to rein in one of his charges, the young man
now in prison for Rabin's murder.
Here at home a missing piece to the assassination puzzle continues to be ignored
by the proper authorities for political reasons. An article in the JEWISH PRESS (3 November 1995, page 10) by Paul Eidelberg, which was on newsstands in New York City and Jerusalem on the Wednesday before the Saturday when Rabin died, called for
revolution and overthrow of the Rabin government. A bit more subtle than the cursing rabbis who became the focus of
immediate attention, Eidelberg cited the Torah and the American Declaration of Independence as well as the musings of unnamed
"respectable Israeli citizens" as references for his justification of revolution by violent force "when the
laws of the state violate the laws of G-d."
Six weeks before the assassination and publication of this actionable
article, the JEWISH PRESS editors removed the usual reference to Professor Eidelberg's association with Bar Ilan
University from the headline of his weekly column. Inasmuch as Eidelberg was on sabbatical in the USA in November 1995,
why would the editors erase his connection to this university? Rabin's murderer, we soon learned, once attended Bar
Ilan.
Why do the proper authorities hold back? Appellate judges Newman, Leval and Parker, in the case of Sheik Omar
Abdul Rahman et al., spelled out the applicable law clearly: "Words of this nature -- ones that instruct, solicit
or persuade others to commit crimes of violence -- violate the law and may be properly prosecuted regardless of whether
they are uttered in private, or in a public speech, or in administering the duties of a religious ministry."
What, then,
prevents Eidelberg's arrest? It may well be a desire to save Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani deep embarrassment;
Pataki was a regular contributor to the JEWISH PRESS at the time of Rabin's death and Giuliani was riding a wave of editorial
adulation for having ejected Yasir Arafat from a Lincoln Center concert just weeks before. But for the governor and
the mayor to go down in history as linked to an individual who incited for the death of Yitzhak Rabin is simply too outrageous!
What other explanation is there for the deep chill that has obviously been put on an investigation and prosecution of Eidelberg?
The JEWISH PRESS is
a right wing weekly newspaper that champions the idea of a purely Jewish state over an integrated and democratic one.
Writers, including KACH party members, have called for revival of the pre-Hitler Zionist policy of "transfer" of
Arabs to the east of the Jordan River. Correspondents have called Israeli elections and Knesset votes fraudulent when
Arab votes help decide the outcome. A contributing rabbi once declared informers against other Jews anathema to
the Jewish community, which is inconsistent with the adversarial process on which our legal system is founded. For Pataki
and Giuliani to lend the prestige of their high offices to such extremism is not only shameful but also dangerous for democracy.
Indeed, Police
Commissioner Howard Safir recently elevated the editorial board of the JEWISH PRESS to the status of a pre-Grand
Jury in the unfortunate death of a deranged person at the hands of the NYPD. Safir can hardly be expected to be objective
in holding one of its contributing writers accountable for his poisonous ink.
Surely, some ad hoc schmoozing did occur right
after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin; shortly thereafter, the editors showed some damage control sensitivity by adding
an extra caveat on top of the page where Eidelberg's regular weekly column still appears: "Views expressed on this
page are not necessarily those of the publisher." But this does not wash away the innocent blood!
Stephen M. St.
John, POB 449, NYC, NY 10185, Telefax 212 534 5024
Author,
An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater Jerusalem
