President Isaac Herzog warned Monday that the country is experiencing the same levels of incitement and violence as it did 30 years ago, before then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered, while speaking at a state memorial ceremony on the anniversary of the assassination.
“Three decades later, we are still seeing the same signs — perhaps even more so: harsh, crude, and coarse language; accusations of treason; poison spreading across social media and the public sphere; violence in every form — physical and verbal,” he said during the ceremony at the Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem.
Herzog said that it is “inconceivable” that three decades after Rabin’s assassination, “we still face such threatening violence within our society. This is a strategic threat in every sense.”
The left-wing leader was assassinated in 1995 by far-right extremist Yigal Amir after attending a mass peace rally in Tel Aviv’s Kings of Israel Square — since renamed Rabin Square — that was called to highlight opposition to violence and to showcase public support for his efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.
Herzog was accompanied on Monday by his wife, Michal, while Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy, and Shin Bet chief David Zini were among the top figures in attendance.
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In his speech, the president warned against violence directed at public servants, officials in the IDF and Shin Bet, civil servants, prosecutors, and judges, as well as against members of the Knesset and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, who skipped the ceremony, as he has done since 2021.
Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy (L) and Shin Bet chief David Zini at the state memorial ceremony marking 30 years since the assassination of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, held at Mount Herzl cemetery, in Jerusalem, on November 3, 2025. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
Many of Rabin’s relatives and his supporters blame the current premier and then-opposition leader for the polarized political climate in the lead-up to the murder, and they have increasingly accused him of once again stoking intense divisions in the country.
“We are seeing rising and dangerous violence throughout the entire public sphere — in the streets, on social networks, in educational institutions, and in crime that is consuming segments of our society — especially within the Arab community,” Herzog noted.
The president issued a stark warning: “We are once again on the edge of an abyss, and there must be only one path forward: zero tolerance for violence!” He added that the State of Israel “is not a battlefield, but a home, and in a home, we do not shoot. Not with weapons, not with words, not with threats, not with expressions, and not even with hints.”
Israel needs “at this moment to uphold all the clauses of the agreement initiated by [US] President [Donald] Trump and act by every means and tool to bring back all the slain hostages” from Gaza, Herzog also said, referring to the ceasefire in the Strip.
Currently, movement toward the next stages of the plan appears to have stalled, as Hamas has yet to hand over the bodies of eight slain hostages still held in the Strip. Meanwhile, Israel is still controlling approximately 53 percent of Gazan territory, and striking imminent terror threats.
(L-R) Then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, then-US president Bill Clinton, and then-PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on September 13, 1993. (Wikipedia)
Herzog also encouraged Israel to “expand the circle of peace” in Rabin’s name.
“Israel’s impressive achievements on so many fronts [have] changed the face of the Middle East, as has the strong and courageous alliance with the United States, with the American administration under President Trump, which is leading a determined and historic effort to expand the circle of peace and normalization in the region,” Herzog said.
“All of these open up before us tremendous opportunities. In many ways, this is the realization of Rabin’s vision,” he said of the late premier, who led Israel’s peace efforts in the 1990s, signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians and a peace treaty with Jordan.
“Israel has always desired peace with all our neighbors,” Herzog continued, saying that “we must continue to do so.”
He added that this “also depends on our neighbors, especially the Palestinians… on their willingness to internalize and recognize our national home here, in our ancestral land, and to understand that the path of terror will never defeat us.”
The president also urged domestic unity, saying that the upcoming election year is likely to be “a tense one — but it must not be a year of incitement or violence. Political disagreement is legitimate; turning a rival into an enemy is not.”
Yonatan Ben Artzi, Yitzhak Rabin’s grandson, speaks at a state memorial ceremony marking 30 years since the assassination of the late prime minister, held at Mount Herzl cemetery, in Jerusalem, on November 3, 2025. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
Rabin’s grandson Yonatan Ben Artzi also spoke at the service, calling on the nation to reject extremism and internal hatred.
“Thirty years ago, in one evening, after a long and tense day, my grandfather, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered. In less than a minute, with three cowardly bullets in the back, a childhood hero was ripped from me, the pride of my life,” he said.
“He was murdered by another Jew, extremist, fanatical, and vile. One of our people. The trauma of the murder changed the course of my life, changed the course of the country from then until today,” he said.
“In trauma, national as well as personal, there is often an opportunity for change. I call on you: let us use this opportunity after the trauma of the failure of the [October 7, 2023] massacre. Let us do together what should have been done after the trauma of a prime minister’s murder — push the malignant extremism to the margins,” he said.
“Extinguish the eternal hatred and eradicate those who seek to ignite it. If we act together, we will succeed in rebuilding the Israeli miracle,” he stated.