In The Beginning There Was Hebrew University

By October 1996 I knew that Yigal Amir wasn't the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin. There wasn't all that much evidence to back the claim, but what existed was conclusive. We had the assassination film showing Rabin walking upright after Amir's shots. There were the police lab results proving Rabin was shot point blank, which the film showed, Amir could not have done. And we had a witness who told us what happened.

By October 1996 I knew that Yigal Amir wasn't the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin. There wasn't all that much evidence to back the claim, but what existed was conclusive. We had the assassination film showing Rabin walking upright after Amir's shots. There were the police lab results proving Rabin was shot point blank, which the film showed, Amir could not have done. And we had a witness who told us what happened.

At the time I was co-editor of an intelligence newsletter called Inside Israel. My partner, Joel Bainerman and I decided to publish our findings. By doing so, we were the first publication to expose the real Rabin murder. Reading that first article today, one has to be amazed how accurate our research was so early in the game.

It was such a modest newsletter. We barely had a hundred subscribers. Yet that article in that humble vehicle was reprinted over and over and to our total surprise, a hundred subscribers convinced thousands of people to read this new point of view on Rabin's murder. And because I was the first to dare to say the unsayable, the higher-ups decided I had to be quashed. The means chosen was television.

I received a call from the producer of Israel's leading TV weekend magazine. He told me he was impressed with my findings and wanted to produce a TV report that would get to the bottom of the Rabin murder.

Back then, I thought media people told the truth. Now how naive was I!! In fact, the show which aired on Channel Two was a snow job of epic proportions using incredibly deceitful editing to present me in the very worst light possible.

This might have been the end of my involvement in Rabin murder truthseeking, except I had an activist partner who knew how to exploit an opening. He said, "Let's organize a public lecture and see what happens." So he rented a hall at the Windmill Hotel in Jerusalem, did some modest promotion and then we waited to see if anyone would show up.

It was the stormiest evening of the year. Driving to the hotel I was crestfallen. The rain was so thick I couldn't see ten yards in front of me. No one was going to leave their homes on a night like this to hear me.

However, a lot of people saw the article and the tv show and braving the miserable weather, over seventy arrived for the lecture. On a clear evening, we guessed over 200 would have made it. Also impressed by the turnout was a well-known Druze reporter for television Channel One Rafi Halabi. He reported the surprising turnout in the driving rain and interviewed me fairly. I was now reaching a few million people without editing.

One audience participant was Brian Bunn, a member of the Foreign Students Council of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was in his early twenties and had a hippieish look about him. He wasn't certain that my conclusions were right but felt Hebrew University students should judge the evidence for themselves. He asked if I would speak at Hebrew University if he used his position to organize a lecture for me. Naturally, I agreed, neither of us understanding that we were about to turn the country upside-down.

Also in the audience was Joel's friend David Perkins. He was a musician/performer with a great flair for flamboyance. He volunteered to help Brian publicize and record the event. The accompanying photos were taken by him.

THE SHOW GOES ON...ALMOST

Brian Bunn showed his character. He was under threat from all quarters at Hebrew University to cancel the lecture. He didn't budge. All his posters were ripped down. He put them back up. He had no idea why there was so much opposition to his modest event.

I had no idea that there was going to be any trouble until I met the Channel One reporter at the Hyatt Hotel near the university two hours before the speech on April 3, 1997. She told me to expect "an explosion there." She filmed me and I was muddled. But the camera ran out of film and we reshot my interview. This time I found inspired words. I said, "Minimum, I'm wrong. Maximum, I'm right. We'll never know if I don't speak." That message, broadcast as the first item on the 8 o'clock news altered my image to millions of people from a deluded fanatic to a rational reporter.

At the time, I earned my keep as a correspondent for foreign magazines like Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. I was unknown to most Israelis. Why was I the first item on the news, even before the speech began?

And why were all those tv cameras waiting for me at the university to cover my lecture live? They were pre-positioned to cover the "explosion" planned by the top echelons of the Israeli security establishment. Joel, David, Brian and I met outside the lecture hall, saw the crowd of demonstrators holding candles and signs, saw the tv vans, and saw the mass of reporters. We turned to each other, asking, "What the hell is going on here?"

We all made the fateful decision without hesitation. As dangerous as it looked, when Brian said,"Let's go in," we all moved towards the entrance of the hall.

A "student" saw me and shouted, "It's him." The crowd booed. Then a little man I had never met rushed at me with fists raised and shouted repeatedly, "Hit me, I want you to hit me." It turned out that the tiny provocateur was Labor Knesset member Eitan Cabel. He, along with MK Dahlia Itzik had helped organize the demonstration. The real students were in their twenties and quietly holding candles. The fake students were Shabak agents in their thirties. Later in the year, we recognized them on TV leading other phoney protests. Worse, the university security guards were working with them and Brian saw one guard put his security shirt over a Meretz Party tee shirt.

The security department of Hebrew University was working with the Shabak to foment a riot. Some 200 legitimate students and interested outsiders arrived to hear my lecture and the rioters violently stopped them from entering the hall. A 70 year old woman, Ruth Matar, was thrown through a plate glass window. But when the police were called to put a stop to the violence, the university's security department prevented them from entering the university.

I managed to get into the hall by the skin of my teeth and waited for it to fill up. I heard the noise outside but was told not to show myself there. So I had no idea what was happening outside and believed that it would be sorted out and I'd give my speech to a sizable crowd. But no one was allowed in except for dozens of reporters. Now how come they were allowed in by the security guards and not the students? (see attachment 2 where I'm surrounded by the reporters. Rotate one turn right).

Thank goodness they were there. One after another asked me, "Are you a Revisionist?"

"Like Jabotinsky?" I asked sincerely.

"No, like Holocaust denier."

"Why would you think that?"

"That's what they told us."

So, the little press conference was orchestrated too. But the stage management was backfiring. Some reporters starting listening to me as I showed the evidence. Then more joined in. One reporter, Avi Segal, wrote a very favorable piece in the newsmagazine Yerushalayim. The riot was covered by the world's media. It even made page one of the New York Times. This was no way to cover up the Rabin murder.

So a security agent tried to break up the interviews. He sternly told me: "You'll have to leave. A Knesset member wants to meet with you."

"Well, I don't want to meet with him," I replied. And the interviews went on. One led to a TV interview on Cable news the next day, where I exploited the forum skillfully, and attacked Hebrew University for its hypocrisy. The Shabak, Eitan Cabel, Dahlia Itzik and company had planned to disgrace me and all they succeeded in doing was making me famous for the first time in my life. To this day, there is no way to thank them enough. Because of their efforts, when my book Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin was later published, it was a bestseller in Israel.

But that's not what I was thinking that evening. I was just ticked off that my lecture was disrupted. However, the security people, under orders, I later found out, from the president of Hebrew University, were more ticked off that I was showing real reporters real evidence. They ordered the reporters out. With nothing more to do, Joel and David suggested we meet at the Hyatt for drinks. I would drive Brian there in a few minutes.

However, I was not permitted to walk to my car. Two security guards ordered me to come to a room "for my own safety." Brian was not told where to find me. Sitting alone in that room with the guards was the most disturbing part of the evening, even more so than the riot itself. I was becoming more certain that something bad was being planned for me.

In fact, that may have been the case. But Brian kicked up a storm at security headquarters and I was released. He was even more upset than I was that the lecture was a disaster and in the car, apologized non-stop. But when we sat at our table at the Hyatt, Joel and David were delighted.

"It was very, very good," declared a smiling Joel.

David added, "A miracle of promotion."

We were surrounded by the thirty-something "students. They were sitting at every table watching and recording us. After a few drinks I understood what Joel was so happy about. The bad guys made me an instant celebrity.

We started getting playful. We ran out of cigarettes and I stood up and bummed a few from the chief Shabak agent tailing us. He complied, so David asked him if he'd mind taking our picture. (See attachment 1, from left to right; me, Brian, Joel, David).

What you see is a moment in four men's lives, when we knew we did something good for our nation and our people, something that would not go away. We all knew we had made history that night.

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Now it's Rabin month again. On October 27th, the Hebrew calendar anniversary of Rabin's murder will again be commemorated with its usual cornucopia of media fibs.

And as usual, there will be a truthful conference on the Rabin murder sponsored by the Root and Branch Association.

But there are two differences this year.

For the first time in five years, when Dr. David Morrison's Lies - The Rabin Assassination And The Israeli Secret Services, was published, there is a new book in the Israeli market deeply and seriously analyzing the Rabin assassination and coming up with precisely the same conclusions as my own work. It is called Tolaat Yaacov VeDavid Yishmael. The author uses the pen name M.D. Ben-Ami. He is keeping his identity secret. My guess is the book is the righteous work of Arieh Stav.

The author has a 900 page running conversation with George Orwell about the News Speak lies of the Israeli government since "peace" was brokered in 1992. Almost a hundred pages of the conversation are about the Rabin murder and I am quoted liberally. Like David Morrison before him, the author thoroughly examines my research and concludes that I got it right. (Tammuz Publishers, POB 21337, Tel Aviv 61213)

Here is the highest recommendation I can offer. 900 page books in Hebrew scare me away because of the time needed for me to read so much Hebrew. I enjoyed every moment of this book and I barely felt any time passing.

Difference two: the conference will change. A serious problem in the past two years is that too many people have heard the speakers. I can't give a new speech each year. The evidence remains the same and only updates change from conference to conference. Even more discouraging, the conferences fail to produce what we all want; a new commission of inquiry to finally get to the bottom of the crime.

This year there will be a trial. We are planning to assemble a jury of respected legalists, police officials, doctors, journalists and public figures who will hear our evidence, discuss it with the audience and at the end of the evening, vote on whether Rabin was murdered in a political conspiracy and whether Amir was the actual triggerman.

It will also be a conference by invitation only. We need your help. First, if you wish to attend, write rb@rb.org.il to book a place. Next, we need you to recommend jurists, ideally skeptics from the whole political spectrum. If you can persuade such a skeptic to sit on the panel, please write to the same address and he/she will receive an official invitation. Do join in.

With the new format we are hoping that a way will be found to break the cover-up. Places are limited this year, so do contact the organizer and help make the event successful, even historical.

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And my new book Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism And The Holocaust will be out on Oct. 1. That happens to be the day I fly to Italy for a press conference and lecture. But I'll be back on the 4th and will begin filling the many orders for the book which have arrived.

If you'd like to purchase the book and have a good family time, I will have a table at the Pnai Kedem kite festival on Oct. 5. Call Suzy or Michael at 054-473-0652 or 02 930 -9076 for details.

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Barry Chamish is most recently the author of "Save Israel!", and also "Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin", "Israel Betrayed" and "The Last Days Of Israel." His website is www.barrychamish.com.