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Friday September 13, 1996

Knesset panel excludes Netanyahu from Rabin event

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM -- A Cabinet committee has drawn criticism for its decision to exclude President Ezer Weizman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the list of speakers at the official ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the death of Yitzhak Rabin.

The decision, which was made this week by the Cabinet's Ceremonies and Insignia Committee, came in deference to the wishes of the Rabin family.

The slain premier's widow, Leah Rabin, has expressed outrage at Weizman's failure to mention her husband in his speech at the opening of the new Knesset earlier this summer.

She has also frequently voiced the view that the political right, led by Netanyahu, was indirectly responsible for the atmosphere of threats that preceded Rabin's murder, and that Netanyahu has never admitted this responsibility, much less apologized.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz said in an editorial Sunday that the state ceremony commemorating the first anniversary of the Nov. 4, 1995 assassination must rise above Leah Rabin's sensitivities.

"The Cabinet committee erred when it failed to distinguish between the family's ire and the official nature of the ceremony," the editorial said."Propriety and protocol require that the president and the prime minister speak."

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