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Well folks, it has come to this: Yigal Amir, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin, has been permitted to have a 10 hour conjugal visit with his wife, Larissa Trimbobler, for the purposes of pro-creation. Apparently murderers of people and national dreams have the right to procreate, according to the Israeli High Court, and since fertility treatments weren’t effective and may have been physically harmful to Larissa, the prison authorities have agreed to facilitate the conjugal visit.

The happy couple will enjoy their marital and conjugal bliss inside a room within the prison. Ms. Trimbobler may bring some personal effects as well as dried fruits and cookies and Yigal Amir may bring some kosher food. We can assume that there will be some crying and joy involved even though all Amir could muster at his own sentencing for murder was a smirk.

My problem is that the room seems a little bare. After all, this may be one of the few times in their entire lives that the couple will have the chance to be together and surely they would seek more than this unadorned room and bed. If there were enough time, we could send over some of the designers from Home & Garden TV channel to redo the space. For example, I would think a large framed photo of Yitzhak Rabin above a large framed Hebrew quotation of that commandment, you know the one…don’t murder, would be perfect on the wall overlooking their bed. Needless to say, the color red, representing Rabin’s spilled blood, would be splashed liberally around the room in places such as the sheets or the walls. The bathroom can be wallpapered with images of crying Rabin family members and all the lamps in the room can have long cords shaped like hanging nooses. Above, on the ceiling, I would write in large capital Hebrew letters in biblical script: MURDERER. That way, when Amir is resting after the act, he can look at it and when Larissa is in the act, she can look at it.

I feel sorry for Ms. Trimbobler that she fell in love with a vicious, unreprentant murderer, but she should know that this room is a room of death, not of life. Oh yeah, Amir’s family is happy for him but they and Ms. Trimbobler are unhappy that the details of this conjugal visit have been made public. I think they are forgetting their son is a public figure by his own choice.

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themiddle

20 Comments

  • As much as this guy is a slime ball, you cannot take away the privilages that terrorists, you know, those nice friendly guys who attempt at commiting mass murder by trying to blow themselves up or shooting people, get within the prison system. What about those crying families? What about that blood spilt? I’m sorry, but no ones death is above another’s and the law must be applied equally. Even if it means producing the spawn of a vile being.

  • What troubles me is that just like the traditional Muslim community sometimes acts like each incident is isolated in its nature and the perpetrator is “crazy,” (and shockingly, even members of the Jewish community buy into this fantasy) so too the traditional Jewish community needs to be honest about our own problem with fundamentalism. Yigal Amir did not find the faith to kill Rabin on his own. He had tremendous help, guidance, and chizuk, from other fundamentalists, including leaders, who convinced him this was a good thing for Klal Yisroel, even if they didn’t actually say he specifically should pull the trigger.

  • Cut out the fantasy bullshit, Shy Guy, this man is a murderer who sought out and shot to death the Prime Minister of Israel, a man who also happened to be one of its founding fathers and thanks to whom Israel was able to survive and grow for many years. He was also a man who was seeking to bring forth a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

    As Kelsey says, there was no shortage of incitement against Rabin from parts of the Right who should take responsibility for Amir’s actions. All of these conspiracy theories are merely a smokescreen to remove attention from the culpability of a movement and ideology that has pervaded elements in Israel’s political and religous Right. Not all of the Right, by any means, but definitely sections of it. The views these people hold are the reason Amir remains unrepentant to this day and still has many supporters out there including a woman who married him as if he had some truly impressive inherent positive qualities. He has none. He’s a cold blooded murderer of a PM, an Israeli hero and a man who did not deserve to die before his time.

    Live and learn.

  • There’s no fantasy here. Face facts. I never said that Amir wasn’t a murderer nor did I suggest any leniancy be shown to him, though there are lots of problems with the details of the assasination itself.

    The conspiracy theories being what they are, Avishai Raviv is not fiction, nor is what he staged and performed as per instructions of the Shabak’s “Jewish Department”. Don’t want to bother educating yourself? Fine with me.

    Amir remains unrepentant because Rabin can be credited with the disaster that Israel has been in now for some 15 years and Amir got rid of one big problem. But ends don’t justify means and I never said otherwise.

    I think it’s very appropriate that Israel’s newest biggest highway, route 6, is named Derech Rabin. After all, the road’s other name is Chotzei Yisrael – the Divider of Israel.

  • yo middle.

    Why are you still ignoring that Amir had more guidance from the Shabak then the rabbis? Until this day, not one rabbi has been indicted for motivating, voicing, or knowing about Amir’s involvement/aspirations. In contrast, a female acquantince sat in jail for not taking Amir seriously.

    Notwithstanding, the shabak ‘secret service’ failed their most important mission, and the head of the organization resigned and only later to become a mayor. That guy should have been ‘unhonourably’ dismissed and forgotten by history.

  • I’m not excusing the Shabak or anybody. This discussion is about Amir and the environment from which he came. Look at the bullshit about “chotzei Israel” by Shy Guy (splitter or divider of Israel) about Rabin. Far worse was said about Rabin around that time by many leaders on the Right including rabbis. Do I need to pull up the link to the idiots with the pulsa denura? I’m sure a search on Jewlicious will bring them up.

    Amir is a murderer. There are others who believe as he does that what he did was justified and good for Israel. After all, he’s not insane, just a criminal. Conspiracy theories and excuses or accusations at poor performance by security services don’t get us where we need to go which is to a place where we all agree that this was an inexcusable, violent, horrific act that was not sanctioned by any part of the state or the vast majority of Israelis, but which did receive overt if quiet sanction prior to the murder and tacit sanction and eager forgiveness after the murder by a small group of extremists who are of the far Right and still exist to this day. That’s all.

  • Shy guy, the question here is should Amir be given the same legal rights as non-political prisoners. You can draw a parallel between Amir and the Rabin assassination and Sirhan Sirhan and the RFK assassination. Both were “unaffiliated” terrorists – yet both are viewed as martyrs by the Israeli far-right and the Palestinian respectively. Whether they were or were not acting on authority is moot, at least in Sirhan’s case, since he is a terrorist. By U.S. definitions, at least:

    “Department of Defense: The calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

    FBI: [T]he unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

    State Department: [P]remeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

    Amir was originally denied conjugal visits not because of his crime but because he was a “security risk” and could pass info to his supporters (from an old Shaister post). Which makes him an affiliated terrorist.

    Which should, by all logic, preclude him conjugal visits. Which makes anon’s comment (#1) that much more disturbing. It seems pretty fluid… supposedly Barghouti was able to run a political campaign from his prison cell. And women terrorists were getting pregnant behind bars.

    Shyguy – like Amir, Sirhan is the subject of the obligatory crazy conspiracy theory. Peter Evans’ book “Nemesis” claims Sirhan was a tool of the CIA (a recent “cause celebre” in Hollywood). Timothy McVeigh was a pawn of the CIA. So what? Terrorists all. So why should Amir be getting any… you know what? Sirhan wasn’t. No one’s getting any in Guantanamo. All McVeigh got was the chair. Food for thought.

  • Ramon, I’ll make it quick:

    1. My opinion of Rabin’s endangerment to Israel still stands.

    2. I only responded here because of DK’s smear against myriads of religious Jews.

    3. I didn’t say that Amir didn’t murder Rabin.

    3. You can distract all you want by Avishai Raviv is a living-in-the-flesh being, who is a confirmed Shabak provocateur, who worked for the Shabak’s then-new and still existing “Jewish Department”, who had the most interested delayed series of court trials. Even the most left-wing Israeli papers minimally reported this tool’s authenticity.

    Why don’t you look him up instead of telling me that there exist conspiracies in the world that are baseless?

    As far as Amir’s rights, there would have been much less publicity – positive or otherwise – had they threated him no different than any other murderer. Either this is allowed or not.

    You know it funny you mentioned Bargouti. Responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis, their blood must have been much thinner than Rabin’s when you consider the “benefits” he enjoys in prison compared to Amir. The excuse of Amir being a “security risk” is just that – an excuse.

  • Shy Guy, we’re never going to agree on some things but how can you argue that Amir is not a terrorist? Personally I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up one day to find Oliver Stone right about everything. Of course denying Amir conjugal vists due to a security risk is an excuse. The reason should be it’s just punishment. Of course it’s hypocritical the different ways in which Amir and Barghouti are being treated. That’s why I brought it up. Except for two things (sorry if this pisses you off): Barghouti is a terrorist; Amir is a terrorist and a traitor. He killed his own country’s leader. His goal was to destroy his own country’s political process. If he was aided by Shabbak it makes it worse – he’s part and parcel to affecting a coup. In any country that gets you executed, not laid. Oh, and did I mention that thing about Jews killing Jews?

  • Problem with your argument, Ramon. A Jew killing another Jew is something to be taken up with G-d when Amir finally meets Him, but in this world the ruler of law is blind justice. Which means, put on a blindfold to whom Yigal Amir is. For that matter, even assume he’s a Muslim, for all I care. The question becomes, is he receiving the same treatment that other prisoners who committed similar or worse crimes is receiving? The answer is no, and I can even find a similar, albeit very different, example in the US regarding Jonathan Pollard (different in that his crimes didn’t kill anyone, but rather could be argued to save lives). Compare him and his treatment to that of Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, et al. Like I said, VERY different.

  • Is political murder of a prime minister leading a country on a particular path the same as murder that kills an average citizen? I guess they are equal in one way, but they are unequal in that the impact of the political murder is far greater in terms of the numbers of people it affects.

  • William Kunsler, of all people, maintained that political assasinations were not murder, were something much more morally acceptable.

  • Joshua – a Jew killing another Jew is something to be taken up with the here and now. The here and now is a basic tenent of Judaism. We’re living and trying to survive in the here and now. There is no blindfold I can put on for Amir. He is the antithesis of Judaism. The reason for a state of Israel is a Jewish homeland. Prove to me Rabin was trying to destroy that and we may have a conversation. Prove it to me. With facts. I would like to prove Bush is trying to destroy the U.S., unfortunately, as bad as he is, I can’t.

    middle – your point is correct. Amir killed more than Rabin. Shy Guy, Joshua, Y.C. – food for thought. It might be interesting if you shared for us your “greater” vision of Israel. I’m not arguing Amir is better than a common criminal – I’m saying, as far as the state of Israel is concerned – he’s much, much worse. And that means, no nookie.

  • In the case that you are making, Yoseph, all terrorism that stems from political motivations – which represents the vast majority of terrorism, I would venture – would be considered moral. I don’t think it’s moral, and in this case Amir’s murderous action had an impact that for all we know may have cost thousands of Arab and Jewish lives.

  • To me, there is no difference between Yigal Amir and Marwan Barghouti, except in the treatment each is accorded (Barghouti gets to spend his time in Israel’s version of “Club Fed”, along with others of his terrorist ilk. Amir’s every living moment, on the other hand, is criticized. Like I said, both of these people killed Jews, yet only one is receiving true punishment. Either punish Barghouti similarly or don’t punish Amir to that extent. That’s all I’m saying.

  • Joshua – you raise an interesting point – we react differently when a Jew kills another Jew than when a Jew is killed by his/her’s enemy. It’s not like a Jew has never killed another Jew. Yet, why does it still cause me more pain that a Jew – a supposed patriot – killed Rabin, than whatever number of countless enemies we as Jews have. Wasn’t it more painful for Gush Katif settlers to be expelled by the IDF rather than being driven out by the “enemy”. As middle inferred, Amir’s intention was to kill more than a man and he succeeded to some extent. But because of who Amir and Rabin both are/were, it makes Amir a different kind of unholy. You’re wearing a blindfold when it’s really more important to keep your eyes open.

    And Y.C. – why did you say “of all people” when referring to Kunstler’s view on acts of political terrorism? You’re not surprised, are you?

    Por fin, this is a nice perspective…

    http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1063

  • If I had to respond to everything here, it would take several pages. I said goodbye to my high school English teacher’s lengthy essay assignments way back in the last century.

    Carl in Jerusalem, of the Israel Matzav blog, posted this: How Yitzchak Rabin was murdered – what the government doesn’t want you to know. This is just a drop in the bucket.

    Carl also just posted this article: Why Israelis aren’t taking to the streets.

    For those of you that don’t live in Israel, I don’t know how to explain the feeling of helplessness here in the ugliness that is going on in the government, politics, judiciary and law enforcement.

  • So Ramon, let me get this straight: you’re saying it’s OK for the US government to treat Jonathan Pollard much worse than it treats Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, or some other spy who has inflicted much more damage on this nation than Pollard had ever thought of (which is, to say, not at all). Damn the reasons, it’s just because he’s a Jew. That’s what I see you saying. Now if you’re saying something else, say it, because would you give Adolf Eichmann the same rights as Barghouti or the same restrictions as Amir up to the day of his execution? Like I said, Israeli prison is Club Fed for accomplished terrorists.

  • Joshua – must be election time. The fallacies just keep coming. Scroll up. I brought up the hypocrisy of Barghouti’s ability to run a political campaign from his cell. I think I was clear on this.

    I was also clear that, when Rabin’s assassin was identified, my shock and sadness was amplified because Amir’s Jewish. That’s personal. I wasn’t implying a non-Jewish terrorist deserves more rights than Amir. I sympathize with Shy Guy’s frustration. But Joshua, answer me this honestly: Does it matter to you whether a Jew killed Rabin, as opposed to a Palestinian? Again, read my comment about Gush Katif. The pictures say a thousand words about that. Feel however you want about. But please, read my comments more carefully before you try to represent them.