After the premiere of our Shimon Peres documentary last week we had several positive responses from members of our audience who commented on the film’s portrayal of the relationship between Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the events surrounding Rabin’s assassination by an ‘ultra-nationalist Jewish extremist’ during a Peace Rally in 1995.
Yitzhak Rabin’s Assassination dealt a severe blow to the peace process, which had been initiated between Rabin and Shimon Peres of Israel and Yasser Arafat of Palestine.
Efrat Duvdevani, who worked closely with Rabin for a number of years, reflected on the scale of the tragedy when interviewed in ‘The Price of Kings’: "Terrible times. Terrible times…. It was a shock, a national shock."
It was not only the national and the international community that were horrified by Rabin’s death, for Shimon Peres, the personal impact of the assassination was also profound;
"I felt like half of my body was killed and paralyzed because we were far closer than people thought. And in spite of all the criticism, we knew deep in our heart, that one need the other."
Uri Savir also remembers Shimon Peres’ reaction to Rabin’s death: Peres and I drove, after the cabinet meeting, to Jerusalem and for the first time, driving with Peres down to Jerusalem, he did not say a single word. He just stared down. And in the middle of the road, he looked up to me and said one sentence that I shall never forget... 'Now I am alone.'
Despite his grief, Peres was forced to continue on, to bring the country together after the tragedy that has just occurred. Yet, Rabin’s death changed the political direction of Israeli politics- Peres refused to call early elections, claiming, “I don't want to be elected on Rabin's blood.”
Want to learn more? Watch ‘The Price of Kings: Shimon Peres’ in full.
The film is also screening TODAY (08/05/12) at the LA Jewish Film Festival, click here for tickets.
