ENGLEWOOD, N.J., July 23, 1998, Root & Branch: According to author and investigative journalist Barry Chamish, not a word from official sources about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is true. About the only thing Mr. Chamish and the officials of the
Rabin was murdered. Mr. Chamish maintains that everything accepted by the Shamgar Commission from the number of bullets that entered Mr. Rabin's body to the identification of the murderer to the reasons why the assassination occurred is part of a cover-up.

Many other observers are also convinced the assassination was the end-result of a series of dirty tricks perpetrated by the Left against the Israeli Right, with Mr. Rabin's full knowledge a "work accident" as some have put it. These observers say the murder was supposed to be only an attempted assassination and that Mr. Rabin was supposed to survive. The political Right would be just as tarnished, and the Prime Minister would be alive. These observers say Mr. Amir messed up their plans by changing the bullets
in order really to commit murder.

Mr. Chamish, on the other hand, says Mr. Amir, either willingly or because he has been brain-washed or drugged, is taking the blame for something he did not do. "You dont kill a Prime Minister merely to smear the religious Right. You do it to shut him up," he said.
 

FORENSIC EVIDENCE

Mr. Chamish was in New York recently speaking about his book, "Traitors and  Carpetbaggers in the Promised Land" (Hearthstone), and about his new work, "Who Killed Yitzhak Rabin?" (Feral House), due out in the near future. He spoke at the Hineini Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

According to Mr. Chamish, there is no way Yigal Amir, the convicted, self-confessed assassin, could have murdered the former Prime Minister. Using forensic and photographic evidence and physicians' statements given to the Shamgar Commission, Mr. Chamish says Mr. Amir never got close enough to the Prime Minister to kill him at point-blank range, which all the evidence says was necessary to produce the type of wounds and clothing evidence found.

All the evidence, he said, points to the fact that a heretofore unidentified fourth person was in the car that went to the hospital
(besides the driver, the wounded bodyguard, and Mr. Rabin), and that this fourth person murdered the Prime Minister.

Like Mr. Rabin, Mr. Amir was set-up, according to Mr. Chamish.

And who set them up? Mr. Chamish said he knows, but that he feared speaking out would "mark me for dead." He shrugged off the possibility that he might be personally safer once he said what he knows and that he would probably be at greater risk if the individual he believes is the actual murderer had to fear that one day he would speak out.
 

PRO OR ANTI-OSLO

Mr. Chamish maintained that Mr. Rabin went into the Tel Aviv stadium on Nov. 4, 1995, a very worried man. The Oslo process was out of favor with a majority of Israelis, and the latest polls showed that 78 percent wanted the process stopped until a national referendum could be held on proceeding. Only 18 percent of Israelis trusted him enough to continue without the referendum.

Everywhere he went, including to soccer games, he was roundly booed.

Mr. Chamish said he recalled that barely one month before the murder, Mr. Rabin admitted on Israeli television that he was not pleased with the way  the Oslo Process was going and that he had doubts about continuing. Rabin intimated that President George Bush and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had forced Oslo on him. "I didnt know if he was drunk or not, but I knew, right then and there, he was in trouble," said Mr. Chamish, who believes Oslo was hatched by the American Council of Foreign Relations, headed by Mr. Kissinger.

The author believes Mr. Rabin was murdered by elements in Israel and the US that hate Israel and wanted Oslo to continue undisturbed. But, if that was so, Mr. Chamish was asked, why doesn't Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
call for a new, thorough investigation. After all, Mr. Netanyahu has been vilified by the Left who, to this day, blame him for what they see as helping to create an environment that encouraged violence. Surely, Mr. Netanyahu would stand to gain by having it proved  that Mr. Rabin was murdered by forces on the left, rather than those on the right.
 

DID BIBI WIN?

Mr. Chamish is not so sure. Mr. Netanyahu, he said, would then have to admit that he did not win the election in May 1996. According to Mr. Chamish, Shimon Peres really won. Is Chamish saying that Mr. Peres willingly walked away from power? Yes, said Mr. Chamish, because outside forces threatened to expose everything about the Rabin assassination. Mr. Netanyahu cannot order an expose, because then the outside forces would show that Mr. Netanyahu accepted a rigged victory. And for that you go to
jail, said Mr. Chamish.

But wait a minute. Why would pro-Oslo forces work to assassinate Mr. Rabin, and then metamorphose into anti-Oslo forces to defeat Mr. Peres fraudulently at the polls? At the Hineini Center, at least, Mr. Chamish was silent.

Mr. Chamish's supporters say that speculation about who was behind the assassination and election should not detract from the solid body of evidence presented by Mr. Chamish that proves something irregular happened during the investigation into Mr. Rabin's murder.
 

KEMPLER'S FILM

The irregularities begin with the film of the assassination taken by Roni Kempler, a self-described amateur photographer who used a camera he supposedly borrowed from his sister. For some reason, using only his identification card as collateral, Mr. Kempler, who works for the State Comptrollers Office, was permitted by security to hang around a balcony overlooking the so-called sterile area to which Messrs. Rabin and Peres and perhaps half the cabinet would be coming. Mr. Kempler's film focuses for long periods of time on Mr. Amir, about whom Mr. Kempler said he had an odd feeling.

Mr. Chamish said he finds it strange that Mr. Kempler was working for the State Comptroller's Office, which, at the time, was investigating the Liaison Department, a branch of the Prime Minister's Office established in 1953 to educate and rescue Jews from behind the Iron Curtain. According to Mr. Chamish, over the years, the Liaison Department had become a nest of spies. In 1992, immediately after his release from the Golani Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, Mr. Amir had been sent to Riga, Latvia, on some sort of mission for the Liaison Department. Shortly before the assassination, the State Comptroller's Office initiated an investigation into alleged corruption in the Liaison Department, including the unexplained disappearance of a great deal of money.

The Kempler film shows Mr. Amir signaling someone in the distance a few minutes before the shooting, and it captures the unexplainable decision of Mr. Rabins rear guard to abandon his position and clear the way for Mr. Amir. It shows Mr. Amir pointing a gun at Mr. Rabin and ostensibly shooting him. Mr. Chamish's question is: What if the bullets were not real?

There are only two explanations for Rabins assassination. One is that the Shabak, one of the worlds most respected security organizations, is incompetent. The other is that agents on the scene allowed the assassination to take place. Probably with Rabin's knowledge, the Shabak set up Amir, said Mr. Chamish.
 

WHY WAS IT ALLOWED?

Mr. Chamish, who founded the intelligence newsletter, "Inside Israel," has had numerous experts examine the Kempler film frame by frame. The film itself was shown on Israeli television a full month after the assassination, leading Mr. Chamish to wonder why Mr. Kempler waited so long to show it when he would have been a few million dollars richer if he had sold it to the international media outlets the day following the assassination.

In his sole TV appearance the night the film was shown, Kempler said he was not interested in making money, but that doesn't explain why he didnt voluntarily turn the film over to the police, said Mr. Chamish, wondering further why none of the security people noted him on the rooftop filming. Shouldnt the Shabak have confiscated his film? Chamish asked.

The film, said Mr. Chamish, was found to have been sloppily cut and edited, but it cannot hide what the reporter called the strangest part: Mr. Rabin's reaction to being shot. Instead of lurching forward, he alertly turns back, seemingly aware of the events taking place.

At the very moment Mr. Rabin was shot, Mr. Kempler stopped filming. According to Mr. Chamish, Mr. Kempler told Israel's Channel 2 it was because he had seen enough. He told another journalist he stopped because he dropped the camera, and he told still another reporter that a policeman had told him to stop shooting. When the beta film was converted for viewing on national television, the technician who did the transcribing claimed that the sound of the Shabak agent who yelled, "blanks, blanks" was removed, and Mr. Kempler has not been interviewed anywhere since, said Mr. Chamish.
 

BLANKS OR SHOTS

But the film plus eye-witness accounts seem to add up to the need for further investigation. According to Mr. Chamish, Mr. Amir's first words after being apprehended were: "Why are you handcuffing me? I did my job. Now it is time to do yours." According to Mr. Chamish, the first question the Shabak agents asked Mr. Amir was: Didnt you fire blanks? The Shamgar Commission's conclusion was that Mr. Amir himself yelled "blanks" in order to confuse Mr. Rabin's bodyguards.

The security and police personnel, who are trained to testify in court, were unable to agree on the number of shots that were fired. Some said one, another said three, and a third just did not know. They all agreed, however, that Mr. Rabin did not seem hurt when he got into his car, an inexplicable fact, according to Mr. Chamish. He pointed out that, according to the Shamgar Commission, Mr. Rabin had been shot in the lungs and spleen by two hollowpoint 9 mm bullets.

Mr. Kempler's film exonerates the witnesses, according to Mr. Chamish, who pointed out that Mr. Rabin was not pushed forward by the pressure of the bullet, nor did he evince pain. Rather, he kept walking and turned his head quickly to the left.
 

PERES WAS TALKING

Before the shots were fired, the film shows Shimon Peres greeting the crowd, then walking to Mr. Rabin's car with four Shabak agents. Mr. Peres stopped, looked inside the car, and then seemed to point to Mr. Amir seated some nine feet away. At this point, there is a cut in the film, and, afterwards, we see Peres conversing with Rabin's driver, Menachem Damti, said Mr. Chamish.

In the film, Mr. Peres entered his car as Mr. Rabin came down the steps. The camera captured the agents at Mr. Rabin's rear stopping and allowing Mr. Amir a clear shot at the Prime Minister. Mr. Amir drew his gun from what looks like deep inside his pocket.

At that point, Amir should have been pounced on. Instead, he lifts the gun and shoots. Running the murder frame by frame, we see Rabin has supposedly taken a hollowpoint 9 mm bullet in his lung, yet he doesnt wince or flinch. He is not even pushed forward by the impact, nor does his suit show signs behind him in the direction of the noise, said Mr. Chamish.

Mr. Rabin took two steps forward, and then, for a few seconds, the film becomes hazy, although two more shots are heard. Based on the testimony of Mr. Rabin's bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, the Shamgar Commission reached the following conclusion as to what was happening:

After hearing the first shot, Mr. Rubin jumped on Mr. Rabin and pushed him to the ground. Mr. Amir approached them and, while being held by other bodyguards, he pumped one bullet into Mr. Rubin's arm and another into Mr. Rabins spleen at a distance of 50 centimeters.
 

POLICE DISAGREE

Police forensic experts maintain that Mr. Rabin was shot from 25 centimeters at most and then at point-blank range of less than one
centimeter. Mr. Amir never got that close. Further, examination of the clothing shows that Mr. Rubin was shot by a bullet different from the ones that killed Mr. Rabin. The bullets that killed Mr. Rabin were unaccounted for between the time they were removed from the Prime Minister's body and midnight the following day, when they were delivered to the Abu Kabir Forensics Institute; the bullet that hit Mr. Rubin was never found.

Mr. Rubin testified to the Shamgar Commission that he said to the Prime Minister, "Yitzhak, can you hear me, just me?" "Then," said Mr. Rubin, "Rabin helped me to my feet, that is, we worked together. He then jumped into the seat. In retrospect, I find it amazing that a man his age could jump like that."

Mr. Chamish said he found it amazing that a man Mr. Rabin's age with bullets in his lung and spleen could jump at all. According to the Kempl film, 4.6 seconds pass from the time of the second shot to when Rabin is lifted or pushed into the car. Rubin could not have waited for a hiatus in the shooting and made his dramatic plea to Rabin in that time. Nor is Rabin filmed jumping into the car. Rubin lied, but the Shamgar Commission accepted his story, said Mr. Chamish.

Equally surprising is the fact that although the Prime Minister received some 21 units of blood in the hospital, there was no blood on the pavement. "We are supposed to believe that neither Rabin nor Rubin bled," said Mr. Chamish.
 

HIS OWN CAR

Although, according to Mr. Chamish, an ambulance was always stationed near the Prime Minister's car when he made public appearances, this time there was none, causing the Prime Minister to be rushed to the hospital in his own Cadillac.

According to Mr. Chamish, the centerpiece of doubt concerning the assassination focuses on the issue of the back-seat passenger-side door of Mr. Rabin's car. According to the Shamgar Commission, Mr. Rabin entered an empty car, followed Mr. Rubin and Mr. Damti, the driver. But the Kempler film clearly shows that three seconds before Mr. Rabin entered the car, that back seat door is pulled shut from the inside.

Journalists who asked about the slammed back door were told the door had a
special hinge, an explanation Mr. Chamish called ridiculous.
 

LONG 700 METERS

Instead of taking a minute to arrive at Ichilov Hospital, the 700-meter trip mysteriously took over eight minutes. Mr. Damti told the commission he got lost and confused. Further, he said, he did not radio the hospital
to tell them he was coming with the wounded Prime Minister because there
was too much talking.

About 90 seconds before they reached the hospital, Mr. Damti stopped the car and picked up a policeman, Pinchas Terem, to help direct him to the hospital. According to Officer Terem's testimony to the Shamgar Commission, Mr. Rubin, with the Prime Minister dying beside him, told the police officer, "I'm wounded. Bandage me."

"Rabin is dying and all Rubin wants is a bandage for himself?" said Mr. Chamish. "Astounding."

The evidence, he said, suggests that neither Mr. Rabin nor Mr. Rubin were shot by Mr. Amir. Mr. Rabin, he said, was shot in the car by a hit man, probably the same individual who slammed the back door of the car. The gunman, he said, was let out at a predetermined location before Mr. Damti picked up Officer Terem. Mr. Rubin's harmless arm wound was probably self-inflicted to add credence to their story, he said.

According to Mr. Chamish, the Cadillac in which they traveled has also disappeared. There is no record of it anymore, he said.
 

WHICH WOUNDS?

Three doctors who saw Mr. Rabin in the hospital said he was shot in the chest, stomach, and backbone, wounds which Mr. Amir could not have inflicted, said Mr. Chamish. But one pathologist, who wrote his report hours after the incident, said he was not shot in the chest, and that version, according to Mr. Chamish, was the one accepted by Shamgar.

There were too many eyewitnesses who saw Amir behind Rabin. The chest wound story would not have stood up, said Mr. Chamish.

According to Mr. Chamish, on May 3, 1996, Mr. Amir's attorneys filed an appeal to the Supreme Court based in part on one doctor's testimony that Mr. Rabin's wounds and burn marks indicated a point-blank shot. However, according to a report in Maariv, all 17 doctors and nurses on duty at Ichilov the night of the Rabin assassination were receiving death threats. The doctor's testimony that Mr. Amir's lawyers wanted to use disappeared.
 

THE CABBIE

Instead, according to Mr. Chamish, there is second-hand testimony from a taxi driver who said he and a passenger were listening to a report on the radio of Mr. Amir's guilty verdict. The cabbie testified that the passenger, who was on his way to Ichilov, suddenly said, "Amir didn't kill Rabin. He couldnt have."

When the cabbie questioned the passenger's authority, the passenger identified himself as a pathologist from Ichilov and backed up his claim with his ID card. The pathologist allegedly told the cabbie that the Prime Minister had been shot point-blank three times, not twice as the Shamgar Commission said. Then the passenger allegedly told the cabbie that another bodyguard had also died.

In fact, one week after Mr. Rabin's murder, Yoav Kuriel, a policeman assigned to protect the Prime Minister, was also found dead. Though how he died is a mystery since his internal organs were removed purportedly for transplant, said Mr. Chamish.
 

SUICIDE?

The government claimed Mr. Kuriel had committed suicide and he was buried in a closed funeral at Hayarkon Cemetery outside of Tel Aviv. According to Mr. Chamish, traffic was diverted for nearly 90 minutes while the funeral took place.

But Maariv investigative journalist David Ronen succeeded in tracking down Mr. Kuriel's death certificate. At the Hineini Center, Mr. Chamish passed around a photocopy of the certificate, on which the cause of death is marked with an x.

"He's the first person in the history of Israel to die of nothing," said Mr. Chamish.

When Mr. Chamish was supposed to lecture at the Hebrew University, protesters (he believes they were directed by the Shabak) kept him from speaking. The media, however, covered the story, and one of the people who called Mr. Chamish said he had buried Mr. Kuriel. "He said he had actually handled the body and that he had been shot seven times in the chest," said Mr. Chamish.
 

THE SONG SHEET

Equally strange is the story of Mr. Rabin's Director General and close friend Eitan Haber, who, during Mr. Amir's trial, threatened the convicted murderer's entire family with revenge. While Mr. Rabin was being operated the Prime Minister's blood-soaked suit and shirt pockets, looking for something. According to Mr. Haber's testimony, he pulled out the famous bloody song sheet that Mr. Rabin had held at the rally, and took it.

How dare he take evidence? No one has ever asked him why he didn't turn the song sheet over to the police, said Mr. Chamish, arguing that the fact that the bloody song sheet was taken from the suit pocket is proof that the Prime Minister had suffered a chest wound.

"Very few suits have pockets in the back," he said.

From the hospital, Mr. Haber seems to have fled to the Ministry of Defense where he emptied all of Mr. Rabin's files. When asked why, according to Mr. Chamish, he said he wanted to make sure the papers were preserved for a museum. It is an answer Mr. Chamish, for one, does not buy.
 

CORRUPTION

Mr. Chamish, who resides in Bet Shemesh, Israel, with his wife and two children, admitted he has been shunned by most mainstream media and organizations. When he is invited to speak, it is usually because the media hosts want to ridicule him. But recently, previously scheduled interviews with him have been canceled, and Mr. Chamish said he has been told it is because even the hosts are beginning to believe him. One-third of the Israeli public now doubts the official assassination story, he said.

The groups that are interested in what he has to say are Torah-observant ("orthodox") Jews and Christian Zionists, even though he personally identifies with neither group. His motivation for continuing to press for a full investigation is that he wants to see Israel become the kind of truly free and democratic country it is destined to be.

Israel has sunk into such evil. "American Jews have no idea of the depth of corruption that exists there," he said.

Shabbat Shalom,

Susan Rosenbluth
Englewood, N.J.

(reprinted with permission from the "Jewish Voice and Opinion")