Rabin memorial rally canceled this year

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- The Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv canceled a rally to honor the slain prime minister due to budget constraints and dwindling interest, his daughter said.

Dalia Rabin, who chairs the center, said Monday the annual Nov. 4 rally in Rabin Square to commemorate the anniversary of Rabin's assassination would not be held for the first time in 16 years, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"Standing before an empty square would not bring respect to me or my father," Rabin told the newspaper. "We already said last year that it would be the last annual rally. We felt that after 15 years we had exhausted this style event and it was time for a new format."

Rabin said the square is being remodeled and the rally was just too expensive to conduct.

Shimon Sheves, who was Yitzhak Rabin's director-general, criticized the center's decision to skip the rally, saying it could have had a new momentum this year, focusing on the socioeconomic successes of Rabin's administration.

Activist Moshe Feiglin, who led many protests against Rabin, said he was not upset by the cancellation.

"There is no such thing as Rabin's legacy," Feiglin said. "The only legacy Rabin left was the Oslo Accords, from which the public received a painful wake-up call."

Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister twice, from 1974 to 1977 and from 1992 until his death in 1995.