The makers of a controversial new film about the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin describe their conversations with the killer, Yigal Amir
“The murder of an
Israeli prime minister by an Orthodox Jew was inconceivable,” says American-Israeli film-maker Yaron Zilberman. “For anyone who was pro-peace, it was beyond anything that we could fathom.” The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by the religious ultra-nationalist law student Yigal Amir, at a peace rally on 4 November 1995, was one of the most traumatic events in Israel’s history. Rabin’s death buried the prospect of peace, further divided an already riven society and left an indelible mark on Israel’s politics.
Although the assassination has been the focus of many documentaries, Incitement is the first narrative feature to take on the subject. Directed by Zilberman and co-written with Ron Leshem (Beaufort, Euphoria), it chronicles the events in the year preceding the assassination from Amir’s point of view, and examines the political, religious and personal forces that influenced and motivated him. Extensive archival footage which is, at times, almost seamlessly intercut with reconstructed scenes, relays the progress of the Oslo accords and the violent
protests against them, and gives perspective to Israeli politics and society at that time.