Yuli Tamir leaves Rabin Center after blocked from running hate program
[IMRA: Yuli Tamir has consistently pursued her belief that the state should
suppress the rights to free speech of her political rivals. On 27 October
2002 she demanded that Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein investigate who
is behind a flyer against her candidate to head the Labor Party, Amram
Mitzna. On 12 September 2002 Army Radio reported Tamir demanded that an
interview with Arutz 7 program host Adir Zick be barred from broadcast on
the "Briza" television channel. Tamir contacted the heads of the channel
claiming that Zick expressed support in his interview for conspiracy
theories relating to the assassination of Rabin and thus the interview
should be banned.

One of Tamir's favorite hate icons is the folio page sized photo-montage of
Rabin in an SS uniform made famous by GSS agent provocateur Avishai Raviv as
part of a program by the state agency to defame political opponents of the
ruling government's Oslo program.]
===

The following are excerpts from an article that appeared immediately after
Tamir resigned from the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies:

The following are excerpts from
Looking back in anger
By Vered Levy-Barzilai Ha'aretz (Magazine section) 15 November 2002
www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=230426&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

. Tamir declared a rule that she had adopted, and that she recommended that
members of the center adopt: No one who was on the balcony in Zion Square at
the infamous right-wing demonstration in July 1994 (meaning Sharon,
President Moshe Katzav, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert) would ever stand on the stage at the Rabin
memorial service in Rabin Square.

. When Yuli Tamir was appointed as head of the center, in April 2001, she
believed that she would bring changes with her, that she would succeed in
setting a new order of priorities. She found the center involved mainly in
attempts to bridge the gaps between religious and secular, and right- and
left-wing, populations. Tamir had reservations about this activity. She
considered it a deviation from the main issue.

Tamir repeated her position: The Rabin Center must focus on the
commemoration of Rabin and his legacy by discussing the murder, the
incitement that preceded the murder, and the damage done by this political
assassination to Israeli democracy. At the same time, the center must engage
in commemorating Rabin and his activity by turning to broader sectors

."I understand that there is some cognitive dissonance here. People who were
a central part of the incitement [against Rabin] are now running the
country. One is the prime minister. One is the president. One was the prime
minister. One is the mayor of Jerusalem. It's a problem.My problem is that
they are a daily reminder of failure. Of what we don't want to remember:
that in the State of Israel, you can do something that is extremely grave,
and the public won't punish you, but rather will reward you.

"I have another problem: How will we teach children and youth what democracy
is, what democratic debate is? How will I explain to them the difference
between an opponent whom you want to confront, and an enemy you would like
to destroy, when the most basic laws of democracy are not observed by the
highest-ranking members of the state? .

"For 2003 I prepared a budget with a different order of priorities: as much
money as possible for education and for direct commemoration, no budget for
this whole story of `mending rifts.'

.But the last straw, says Yuli Tamir, wasn't Sharon's men, but the memorial
gathering for Rabin that took place on November 2.

.." What kind of an assembly did you want to see?

"A political gathering, with a clear political statement. I want there to be
political

" What do you think could be gained from such an assembly?

"A reconstruction of the pain. Tens of thousands of people who will emerge
with a broken heart and with total political commitment."

. " I presented my ideological positions from the moment I came to the Rabin
Center, and I have stuck to them all along. My political and
social-educational positions have long been known."