Netanyahu distances himself from son's remarks over assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself Saturday from his son's comments accusing assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin of murdering Holocaust survivors.

“I do not agree with what my son Yair wrote about Yitzhak Rabin, of blessed memory,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Saturday. “Yair’s opinions are his alone.”

In a tweet replying to Democratic Union lawmaker Stav Shaffir on Friday, the young Netanyahu wrote “Rabin broke the law by delivering lectures in America while he was a public servant, earning a fortune. When his actions were discovered, he blamed his wife and closed the case in a pleasant phone call with Aharon Barak," the then attorney general.

The tweet referred to Rabin's wife Leah Rabin who had, according to Israeli law, an illegal US bank account registered in her name. The story exposed by the Israeli press led to Rabin's resignation from office in 1977.

“Rabin murdered Holocaust survivors on the Altalena. Rabin brought [Yasser] Arafat and tens of thousands of terrorists from Tunis, and led to the deaths of 2,000 Israelis,” Yair Netanyahu added. 

The Altalena Affair refers to a violent incident that occurred during Israel’s War of Independence in June, 1948. Attempting to smuggle a cargo ship carrying arms into the recently-formed state of Israel, the paramilitary Zionist Irgun organization lost 16 of its members  -- among them Holocaust survivors --  in a confrontation with the nascent Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which also lost three of its soldiers.

Rabin was a young IDF commander at the time and is known to have been involved in the conflict.

Rabin's son, Yuval, responded to Yair Netanyahu’s tweet, saying “I don't believe him. To determine that Rabin murdered Holocaust survivors is a direct continuation of Rabin in an SS uniform,” referring to a notorious 1995 poster of his father in the Nazi guard uniform during a rally in Jerusalem. 

As the leader of the opposition Likud party at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu attended the right-wing rally opposing the Oslo Accords. Rabin was shot to death by civilian Yigal Amir shortly afterwards.

Yair’s tweet caused further political turmoil, with chairman of Labor-Gesher Amir Peretz saying, “Yair Netanyahu is dangerous for Israeli democracy.” Peretz, attending a rally at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, added that “many of the likes of Yigal Amir are now reading these tweets, listening very well to the lack of condemnation from their leader, the dad, and comprehending what they should do.”

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