Freed Israeli co-conspirator in Rabin assassination: "I am not regretful. I am proud of what I did."

[Poll_Blind]

(A smiling Hagai Amir, surrounded by overjoyed supporters and protesters, flashes the peace sign as he enters a van after his release. Jack Guez / AFP - Getty Images)

[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.3077em 0.3077em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Freed Israeli brother of Rabin gunman "proud"[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3077em 0.3077em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]RAMLE, Israel (Reuters) - Hagai Amir, the brother of the man who assassinated late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, said he was proud of his own role in the murder plot after he was freed from prison on Friday.

--snip--

Yigal Amir, his brother, killed Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv in 1995 and is serving a life sentence. He said he shot the politician to stop him from handing parts of what he believed were the biblical land of Israel to the Palestinians in peace negotiations.

On his release, Hagai Amir, who was also found guilty of planning attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and later handed an additional one year term in prison for threatening to kill the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was defiant.

"I am not regretful. I am proud of what I did," Amir, an Israeli Jew, told reporters as family members whisked him into a car and drove away.

Now that's chutzpa.

PB

[Blue_Tires]

1. Commit high treason against your own country and get celebrated as a hero??

wow...

[ck4829]

2. His supporters are their version of the Tea Party no doubt

[Poll_Blind]

6. Yeah, pretty much. The "Second Amendment Remedy" crowd by any other name is just as odious. nt

PB

[cali]

4. huh? I didn't see anything in the article about

celebrating this horror of a man as a hero. In fact, the article reports that protesters were there upon his release. So why did you make that comment?

[Blue_Tires]

5. the caption for the photo said "surrounded by overjoyed supporters and protesters"

so clearly not everyone there was against him...

[gratuitous]

3. Hey, violence works

Rabin's dead, Israel doesn't fuck around with searching out peaceful solutions to its disputes anymore, and Amir walks the streets a free man.

[newspeak]

9. rabin is murdered

and then the likud dominates. So, the israelis turn to the hawks after he's murdered by hawks? Totally fekking unbelievable. So all the right wing loonies in all countries, all they've got to do is murder a rational, honorable leader and the people will automatically gravitate to the ones that have the same ideology as the killer?

[cali]

10. uh that narrative is a tad simplistic.

[Dawson Leery]

7. Right Wing Terrorism is an global problem.

[joeybee12]

8. I think he meant when he used the word "proud" he meant "bat-shit insane"

Must have been lost in translation.

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. Looks like he got an endorsement deal. Good for you, Hagai Amir!

[applegrove]

12. What a bunch of Monsters they are. To think there could have been peace.

[Scurrilous]

13. Ehud Olmert: Right-wing Americans thwarted Israeli-Palestinian peace accord

In interview with CNN, former Prime Minister says time for a two-state solution is running out.

<snip>

"Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tells CNN that right-wing extremists from the United States toppled his government with “millions and millions of dollars” in order to thwart his attempt to reach a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians.

In the interview Olmert gave CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that aired on Friday, Olmert said that his peace plan was supported by a majority of Israelis and that it could have been, and still can be, implemented were it not for “superior powers” in the U.S. which he would not name.

Olmert told Amanpour that he was working toward a peace agreement in 2008, knowing that this would mean handing over East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. “But I had to fight against superior powers, including millions and millions of dollars that were transferred from this country (the U.S.) by figures which were from the extreme right wing, that were aimed to topple me as Prime Minister of Israel. There is no question about it.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/ehud-olmert-right-wing-americans-thwarted-israeli-palestinian-peace-accord-1.428324