(Editor's note: The following are excerpts from an analysis of the events surrounding the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which were published under the title"Kadurei S'rak" (Blank Bullets) in the December 1995 issue of Nekuda magazine.)

"The theory of the blanks," by Shlom Filber, merits consideration. It provides a logical, albeit appalling, answer to most of the vexing questions raised by the assassination of the Prime Minister:

1. Avishai Raviv was an agent of the General Security Services (GSS). It is not credible that the GSS did not know about Yigal Amir, Raviv's very close friend.

2. The GSS was warned about "a small Yemenite from Bar Ilan (University)," who wanted to kill the Prime Minister.

3. One day before the murder, Avishai Raviv cancelled a Sabbath study get-together in Morag...Why was it cancelled? Was it on instructions fromGSS controllers expecting something to happen on Saturday night?

4. At the time of the murder, and immediately afterwards, a number of witnesses heard calls: "This is not real," or "Those are blanks." It is not clear who called out. The Prime Minister' chauffeur thought it was the murderer himself. But Yigal Amir testified it was someone else, and that he heard the call twice, once during the shooting and again when the police handcuffed him.In the re-enactment, Amir did not call out.

5. A police officer told the reporters immediately after the murder: "These were blank bullets."

6. A few minutes after the murder, a message was received on the beepers of reporters from a fictitious terrorist organization: 'This time we bungled, the next time we will succeed.' Why did it say 'We bungled'? After all, the Prime Minister was hit. Why did the police not investigate from which phone the message came?

7. Leah Rabin was taken to the GSS headquarters and told, according to her, "This is not real." Her granddaughter Noa said that Mrs. Rabin called from GSS headquarters and used the expression "blank bullets."

8. The killer was in the "sterile area" (sealed against unauthorized personnel), without being challenged, for two hours. How could this happen?

9. During the shooting not one of the bodyguards opened fire on him. Why?

10. No one informed the hospital that the Prime Minister was wounded and that he was on his way to it. The chauffeur, according to his own testimony, did not drive to the hospital at first, but in a different direction. Leading where? Only after he discovered that the Prime Minister was, in fact, wounded, did he turn to the hospital. No one accompanied the Prime Minister's car (to the hospital), nor cleared the road for it. It seems as if all those in charge were convinced that Rabin was not hurt. On what grounds?

11. One policeman testified that following the murder, he was ordered to look for 0.22 pistol cartridge cases. The pistol that was actually used was of 9med mer caliber. The theory of the blanks suggests a possible answer to all the questions, namely that the murder was essentially a GSS operation gone awry. It assumes that the GSS knew everything ahead of time: who the would-be assassin was, when the assassination attempt would be, and where. The plan was to load his pistol, unbeknownst to him, with blanks, and to allow him to carry out his plan, to open fire and then to catch him in the act.

It is known that the GSS had contrived similar theatrics in the past...[the author relates a GSS operation in which the culprits were provided with disabled weapons, and then caught in an attempted murder].

The theory of the blanks assumes that higher echelon, to which the GSS is accountable, was perhaps seduced to approve such a dangerous plan because of the tremendous political gain such a dramatic performance would yield to the Prime Minister and his party.

The theory postulates that something went wrong, and—at the last moment--the assassin switched the pistol or the ammunition. Thus, immediately after themurder, some of those privy to the secret did not grasp that things had gone wrong and went on according to their prior script, assuming that the Prime Minister was, in reality, not hit.