Members of the Rotter forum speculate that it’s Yoram Rubin, Rabin’s personal bodyguard, the one who put him into the car and got in with him on the way to the hospital.

The practical significance for Bibi, Rabin, etc. is huge—maybe they are trying to oust a prime minister on false charges. They murder a prime minister and pin it on someone else.
And in general—to what extent should one rely on and believe the court? Should I regard Katsav as a rapist, Deri as corrupt, or just some ordinary citizen who was convicted as a criminal? How trustworthy are the law-enforcement authorities to me, and should I conduct myself accordingly.

Speaking of conspiracies, as someone who has no connection, interest, or outside source of knowledge, I came across an astonishing statement by Carmi Gillon (the head of the Shin Bet at the time) in an interview with Ben Caspit (on YouTube https://youtu.be/pigEa-dqHEM, starting at minute 18:20).

Ben Caspit tells him that Leah Rabin showed him Rabin’s shirt and undershirt, and there is a hole in the front, whereas Yigal Amir shot him from behind. Gillon initially tries to dodge, saying he is not an expert in such matters, and then he says the following astonishing thing: in my opinion, it’s an exit hole made by the bullet. Ben Caspit (who is not suspected of sympathy for the right) immediately asks him, but both bullets that were fired were found in Rabin’s body, and Gillon immediately answers that he really doesn’t know how to explain that and isn’t an expert in such matters.
Personally, I was stunned and dumbfounded by this. The head of the Shin Bet, the man who was supposed to fully investigate the assassination of a prime minister, is essentially admitting that someone shot Rabin from the front (or at least shot his shirt and undershirt). He doesn’t claim there was no hole in the front, or that the hole was not the result of a bullet, but tries to smear over it by saying it was an exit hole, and then immediately backs off because the bullets did not exit Rabin’s body.
And so instead of turning the world upside down and checking who shot Rabin from the front? When did he do it? Why? Was Rabin still alive when he was shot from the front? And so on and so forth—he treats this point so lightly that it’s astonishing.
I assume that shirt is still in the possession of the Rabin family, and the minimum required of the Shin Bet is to present it to the public, or at least to ballistic experts, and answer just one question: was Rabin indeed shot from the front or not? And assuming (as Gillon implicitly admits) that Rabin was indeed shot from the front and not by Amir, one must investigate who was with Rabin during the last period of his life.

Exactly as you advised: hear how the other side deals with the claims against it.
And I’ll formulate it cleanly.
There are two facts that emerge from Caspit and Gillon. 1. There is a hole in the front of Rabin’s shirt and undershirt that was caused by a gunshot. 2. Yigal Amir was standing at an angle that did not allow him to shoot Rabin from the front, only from behind.
I’ll note that these two facts are not known to me from some obscure source, but one may assume one can rely on a journalist from the left side of the political map and on the head of the Shin Bet at the time of the murder that these facts are accurate (besides, they are not hard to verify; the clothes still exist, and I assume one can reconstruct exactly where Amir and Rabin were standing).

If we accept these two assumptions, then by simple inference there necessarily follows the additional assumption that Rabin was shot by another person who was not Yigal Amir. (And therefore the head of the Shin Bet’s ignoring such a finding, on the grounds that he doesn’t know how to explain it, is evasive. These assumptions necessarily imply that another person shot Rabin, and it would be fitting to investigate who that person was, when he shot him, and most importantly whether Rabin was alive when he shot him.)

I’ll note that this analysis does not imply that Yigal Amir did not shoot Rabin. Only that another person shot Rabin as well, and only an investigation clarifying who that person was and when he shot him can shed light on the whole picture.
Another thing: of course there could be other weird possibilities, like that Rabin liked wearing a garment with a bullet hole in its front, or that someone stripped Rabin and shot his clothing, etc. etc. But all those possibilities are very strange. Therefore the only reasonable possibility (based on the two assumptions brought to our attention by Ben Caspit and Carmi Gillon) is that another person, not Yigal Amir, shot Rabin from the front (most likely while Rabin was alive, because if not, what benefit would he gain from shooting Rabin’s corpse?), and it’s a great shame that no serious work was done to clarify who that person was, and to examine all the other questions this line of thought raises.

By the way, I truly don’t see any way to reject the conclusion (that someone other than Amir shot Rabin), if we accept the two assumptions above (1. that Rabin’s shirt has a bullet hole in front, 2. that Yigal Amir fired only two shots from behind Rabin). Maybe someone can help me with this?

Truthfully, I had a small hope that your intellectual honesty would overcome self-interested considerations to avoid dealing with such an explosive issue. I can assume that you’re afraid to discuss the point I raised because of your position at Bar-Ilan, and of landing in the eye of the storm like Dr. Kedar.
Very disappointing… I expected a bit more courage and fairness from you. (You can reject the findings, oppose the assumptions I raised, or argue that the conclusion does not necessarily follow from them, but mere silence means evasion due to ulterior considerations. It’s a shame; truly, more is expected of you.)

And maybe the bullet that entered from the chest is the bullet that was fired from behind, came out, hit a hard object, and bounced back backward—a ricochet, in the vernacular?

Regards,
H. Mish

Then there should have been two holes in the front (it makes no sense that the bullet would return through exactly the same point from which it exited).
And in addition there should have been findings on the hard object the bullet hit before it turned around, and one would also need to check how the two bullets found in Rabin’s body were positioned, in order to examine such a possibility.
I’m not an expert in physics or ballistics, but one has to examine carefully what a shot from the front means, and have a substantive discussion about it, despite the explosiveness of the matter.

It has nothing to do with any intellectual honesty. I wrote an angry letter to the president of the university about what they did to Kedar.
I don’t have the tools or the time to enter into an in-depth examination of the data themselves and the various considerations based on them. I don’t think I have the tools or the time to do this seriously, and it doesn’t interest me enough to do research on it. As I wrote, a priori I am not inclined to be persuaded by conspiracy theories, but that is of course only a starting point.
Good luck.

1. I too am not at all inclined toward conspiracies, for the simple reason that usually the problem with them is not in deriving the conclusions from the given facts, but in doctoring and distorting the facts.

2. In this case, the facts are brought to my attention straight from the horse’s mouth—that is, from a left-wing journalist, and from the head of the Shin Bet during the period in question. Therefore I accept them as correct (quite apart from the fact that these facts are easily verifiable and have also not been denied by anyone).

3. Therefore all that remains for us is simply to derive from the facts placed before us the conclusions that follow from them. And incidentally, as in any logical process, I am willing to discuss both the reliability of the facts placed before us and the question whether the conclusion that follows from them can be rejected.

4. I don’t accept your claim of lack of time. It’s exactly two minutes to watch this segment of the interview and verify that these are the facts that emerge from the mouths of those two distinguished figures, and then discuss whether the conclusion I presented here follows from those assumptions. (If you want to be cautious, you can say: “From the words of Ben Caspit and Carmi Gillon it necessarily follows that someone other than Yigal Amir shot Rabin from the front, and this claim raises many and varied questions.”)

5. It has enormous significance if there was a plot from the perspective of the Shin Bet and various other people to murder a prime minister. And with all due respect, this is a subject worthy of serious and substantive discussion no less than dozens of topics that come up here on the site, both in posts and in Q&A. So I also find it hard to accept your claim that the subject is not interesting or important to you.

6. I can only conclude that your willingness and motivation to conduct substantive discussions on explosive issues and slaughter sacred cows is only against weak targets (such-and-such rabbis), but if you are afraid you might be harmed by some explosive discussion, you prefer not to deal with it.

7. Otherwise, at the very least you are called upon to express your position regarding what follows from those statements of the said head of the Shin Bet.

May we be allowed to peek at the letter you wrote to the president of the university?
Thanks

No. A letter intended for outside publication is written differently (less incendiary and less harsh).

I always had the opposite impression…

I saw the interview and it really is interesting (Carmi Gillon comes off there as quite a manipulator, elegantly dodging all the claims).
I know Rabbi Michi, and it’s hard for me to accept that he recoils from dealing with some issue out of convenience or self-interest (he always says that if ISIS presented him with a convincing argument, he’d be willing to join them). On the contrary, he prefers to deal specifically with those explosive issues, out of a desire to show how one conducts a substantive discussion while reducing emotional and self-interested arguments. And precisely such problematic topics are the best material for that.

I truly don’t understand why the rabbi is avoiding dealing with this topic, but reading between the lines and from knowing him, it would suit him to say that there is indeed a hidden assumption (and even a fairly open one) in the words of the head of the Shin Bet that Rabin was indeed shot from the front, not by Yigal Amir. Very interesting.

It seems to me that Rabbi Michael Abraham is sufficiently busy with a thousand and one philosophical, theological, and halakhic / of Jewish law questions, trying to answer everyone who turns to him, on the site and off it, and writing the trilogy and other works—and one can understand that his mind is not free to conduct renewed investigations into every question in the world. For example: who murdered Arlosoroff, Kennedy, Rabin, Daniel K., and Hani Kikus, etc. etc. There are only 24 hours in a day. What can you do…

With Sabbath greetings,
S.Z. Levinger

There is also a substantive reason for Rabbi Michael Abraham’s lack of motivation to enter questions of this kind. The matters he tends to deal with are discussions of principled questions, and thus for example Rabbi Michael Abraham discussed the principled question of the value judgment of the assassin of the prime minister because of the ideological motive he had, assuming he had such a motive. That is a discussion that has importance whether the murderer was X or Y. From the standpoint of the principled question, it makes no difference whether this person shot or that person, and from which direction the bullet came.

That’s simply not true. Michi deals with every statement of this rabbi or that rabbi (the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Arousi, the rabbis of the Kav yeshivot, and more and more) and writes long posts to refute their statements and their approaches (and it doesn’t seem that he thinks all that highly of them).
In addition, even just as a logical exercise of examining facts and drawing conclusions, it would be called for to discuss this. I see this conduct as real evasion and feigned innocence.
I’m not going to sit now like someone counting coins to show discussions much longer on topics of far less significance from any possible angle.

Let me sharpen the point: I have no intention that he should raise for discussion the question of who murdered Rabin, because indeed he doesn’t have the material and resources to discuss it thoroughly.
All I wanted was to hear his opinion on whether he accepts the facts emerging from the interview—according to the head of the Shin Bet at the time of the murder: 1. Rabin’s shirt was shot through in front. 2. Amir could not have shot him from the front. (These are not facts that I am claiming, but the head of the Shin Bet.) And likewise to hear whether he accepts the conclusion that follows from this, that Rabin was shot (also) by someone who was not Amir.
Does he reject the above facts?? Does he reject the conclusion that follows from them?? I don’t understand the great stubbornness not to answer these simple questions with a simple answer.
Ask anyone around you what he says about the fact that the head of the Shin Bet at the time of Rabin’s murder admitted (implicitly) that Rabin was shot (also) from the front—I am sure everyone’s reaction will be that accepting these facts and this conclusion has enormous implications, so I truly wonder at this stubborn refusal.

And I, the small and humble one, do not understand the silly insistence on getting my opinion about a simple logical argument—whether it is valid or not.
I must say that I have several comments about the logic of your discussion here of me, but I won’t get into it.

I’ll explain the meaning of my stubbornness. In my understanding, there is enormous significance to the fact that the head of the Shin Bet admits that Rabin was shot (also) from the front not by Yigal Amir, and when I discovered this interview I was in shock. True, his admission is not explicit, but a simple logical analysis extracts it in a way that cannot be denied.
I never dealt with this issue and never bothered to read all the conspiracy theories about it, for the simple reason that I suspect the honesty of conspiracy theorists and the “facts” they present. But here it is different. I am analyzing statements of the head of the Shin Bet and of a journalist from the left side of the political map. The weight carried by the facts as they present them is very great. Therefore there is also significance to the claims inferred from their words (unless there is a flaw in the inferential process). And since I saw no substantive response to this interesting finding, I wanted to share it with you and hear your opinion.

Even now you refuse to answer me explicitly and dismiss me with the statement that “you don’t understand the silly insistence on getting your opinion on whether a simple logical argument is valid or not valid.” It would be much simpler to write: I accept / do not accept the facts you presented. And likewise: I accept / do not accept the conclusion you drew from those facts.

I understand that if you called my words a simple logical argument, then I assume that means you regard my argument as valid, but for your own reasons you prefer not to say so explicitly. Fine, that too is something.

This is the first time I’ve been exposed to this story. Truly amazing.
What did the Shamgar Commission say about the hole in front?

I couldn’t manage to find the Shamgar Commission report online (only parts of it).
What there is, of course, are quite a few conspiracy-laden websites that attach this or that documents and records (police, medical, etc.), and here I return to the point I raised earlier: the problematic aspect of these kinds of stories is not necessarily the interpretation and explanation produced by the conspiracy theorists, but rather that it is usually hard to know whether the findings they present are indeed reliable and complete, and not forged or distorted.
And from here an insight into the problem raised at the beginning of the question. In all conspiracies there are two stages. Stage A: presenting findings. Stage B: an alternative theory or interpretation to the accepted interpretation from the official establishment.
My impression is that most of their failures are in Stage A, meaning they sin by presenting the findings in a partial and distorted way. Not necessarily in Stage B. That is to say: if the findings are indeed as they said, then their interpretation is indeed justified and close to the truth.

While searching I also saw all kinds of conspiracy claims about the murder of Tair Rada. And there too my impression was that if the findings they raise are indeed correct (Stage A), then in all likelihood their interpretation is also closer to the truth than the establishment interpretation. But through searching and digging I was exposed to the fact that findings they present as simple facts are not correct, but are themselves assumptions of one kind or another.
For that reason I think the finding I brought (that there is a bullet hole in the front of Rabin’s shirt, and that Amir could not have shot him from the front) is of great value because it is brought to my attention by authoritative sources, who have no interest in inventing it (if anything, quite the opposite), and therefore the transition to Stage B of an alternative interpretation is smooth—apart from the fact that this is not an interpretation but a necessary inference, meaning there is no way to accept the findings and reject the proposed conclusion).

Therefore in such situations it is important to distinguish between the facts presented and the interpretation.
For example, in the present story I brought there are four possibilities.
1. To accept the findings (that a bullet hole was found in the front of Rabin’s shirt, and that Amir could not have shot him from the front), and also the interpretation/inference to which they lead (someone other than Yigal Amir shot Rabin from the front).

2. To accept the findings, but reject the proposed interpretation/inference because of a logical flaw or because of other interpretations.

3. To reject the findings, but accept the inference—meaning to claim that if indeed the findings are correct (that a bullet hole was found in the front of Rabin’s shirt, and that Amir could not have shot him from the front), then certainly the inference is also correct (someone other than Yigal Amir shot Rabin from the front), but unfortunately the findings are not correct.

4. To reject both the findings and the inference. Meaning not only are the findings not correct, but even if they were correct, they would not lead to the proposed interpretation/inference.

As stated, in many conspiracies the situation is number 3, meaning the interpretation is correct, but the findings are distorted.

I would be very happy to hear Michi’s opinion both in general (whether this is the right approach to conspiracies), and specifically about Rabin’s murder—whether he agrees that the situation, as emerges from the Caspit-Gillon interview, is number 1: that the findings there are correct, and the inference that follows from them is also valid and correct.
I’m sorry for the stubbornness, but it really seems strange to me that you insist on evading and not explicitly stating your position (1, 2, 3, or 4) on the issue. I see that much more esoteric questions receive attention and detailed answers, and I would expect basic fairness. Besides that, I’m sure quite a few readers of the site would be interested in what your position is on this question.

Bari, Yigal Amir or not, it’s pretty clear you need some kind of psychiatric treatment. What is this urgency? Michi answered you very nicely that he has neither the time nor the desire to get into it. Relax.

Rabbi, why don’t you respond to Berish? Even though he’s a pest, he’s saying sensible things (it even reminds one a bit of your own points about arguments and inferences).
Do you agree with Berish on the principled level? Do you accept that from Carmi Gillon’s words it follows by simple inference (which apparently cannot be refuted) that there was another person who shot Rabin? Or do you see another possibility?

And judging by how you’re framing Michi, it definitely looks like you’re quite a fan of conspiracies yourself…

Shalom, my dear friend, you are peace by name but not so much in your teaching. I accept with love your recommendations and your baseless insults. But it would have been better if you had responded substantively.

I’ll explain my view to you substantively—no urgency and no pressure. If you had bothered to read what I wrote, you would have seen that conspiracies are the farthest thing from me.
The discussion began simply because I brought an up-to-date example for Michi’s mother’s method: hear what each side has to answer to the claims made against it. And I added that contrary to what is commonly thought, in all conspiracy theories the problem is not only the fantastic interpretation of the conspiracy theorists, but also and mainly the distorted presentation of the factual findings.
In light of this I noted that in Carmi Gillon’s example, there appears to be an admission (which stands up to the above principles) from the perspective of the head of the Shin Bet that someone other than Yigal Amir shot Rabin. And I asked Michi for his opinion on all this. And lo and behold, no substantive response one way or the other.
I noted, and I’ll note again, that this is very uncharacteristic of Michi. He answers almost every question, especially if it touches on basic logic (he opposes or agrees, and of course explains why), especially when it’s a current issue, especially since it doesn’t require special effort (watching half a minute of an interview and expressing an opinion about findings and an inference that I raise from it), and especially since he always declares that he is ready to discuss anything, provided the discussion is substantive and reasoned, and not about labeling and smearing. For example, he takes the trouble to explain to some pest (one called Shalom, who by a remarkable coincidence wrote his comment right next to yours) why the method of carrying weapons in the U.S. is not good, and when that same Shalom continues to pile on idiotic questions, he goes back and explains things to him pleasantly.
Because of all this I infer (!) that there are probably non-substantive reasons why Michi refuses to respond to my question, and I’m very sorry about that. It’s very disappointing. But what I am almost sure of is that he agrees with what I raised, because otherwise by now he would have sent poisonous arrows at me over the flaws and deceptions he found in my words (that’s one of his biggest hobbies).

But by all means, let’s hear what you, Mr. Shalom, have to say in response to all his claims? I’d be happy to hear a reasoned answer.

Dr. Kedar proposed in detail setting up a commission of inquiry to investigate Rabin’s murder. See his article “My Position Regarding the Murder of Rabin” on the Arutz 7 website; see there.

Regards,
S.Z.

I can understand Michi. Even if he agrees that Rabin was not murdered by Amir, he won’t say it. Look what happened to Dr. Kedar. Not only is his position threatened, worse, he gets tagged (unjustly) with full force as a crank by all the media outlets. That’s enormous damage for someone who wants to remain in the mainstream, and for people to listen to his views / publish his books, etc.
Like my mother says, sometimes you have to keep your head down.

Apparently you really don’t know Michi at all. Not even close.

Maybe I don’t know Michi, but I see that he isn’t expressing his opinion on the matter. Do you have any other explanation for why??

Don’t underestimate the damage statements like these can cause a person. Kedar used to be a sought-after interviewee and lecturer.
Now wait and see how his stature drops in the eyes of the whole media and academic mafia. No matter how brilliant he is, he will always be remembered as the crank who said it wasn’t certain that Yigal Amir murdered Rabin, and you’ll see that no one will give him a media/academic platform.

Yes, I have an explanation. Very simple. And he wrote it above. He doesn’t know. In order to judge the matter, you need to watch the film, cross-check information, hear interviews, check, investigate, think, read journalism, and form a position. That takes time. Come on, it just doesn’t interest him that much.

And Michi is the last person who would judge a matter without examining it properly. Oh, and needless to say, he really isn’t worried about the considerations you mentioned.

And the comparison between Michi and Kedar is beyond ridiculous.

Shalom, pardon me, but once again you’re talking nonsense, and apparently you didn’t read the things above.
Who asked Michi to express an opinion and study the whole issue of Rabin’s murder?? Don’t distort my words.
All I asked was his opinion on whether he agrees that from Carmi Gillon’s words it necessarily follows that someone other than Yigal Amir shot Rabin from the front. And assuming he agrees with that, what he thinks of this juicy finding. No serious research is needed to answer that—just watch half a minute of an interview.
From his lack of response, and from the fact that on everything of this sort he usually responds to the substance of the matter, I inferred that for non-substantive reasons (perhaps as Asi wrote) he prefers not to respond.

Berish, I thought you were less naïve. Shalom who responded to you now is not the same Shalom as above. From between the lines of his polished writing (as opposed to the clumsiness of the earlier Shalom), it is evident that this is Michi dressed up as Shalom, who sometimes prefers to hide under different nicknames (perhaps for the reasons presented here earlier..

As for the matter itself, Kedar did indeed present in an interview to Channel 12 https://mobile.mako.co.il/tv-morning-news/articles/Article-d4cb41068ff2e61026.htm the finding that Rabin was shot from the front and Yigal Amir could not have done it. It is a pity, however, that he didn’t mention that these facts are confirmed by the head of the Shin Bet himself (and are not matters of speculation), and that the only answer the latter provided was “I don’t know.” But you are right that one cannot “not know” here—if these are the facts, the conclusion is called for.

I’ll also note that Kedar says there that he relied on the words of Nachum Shahaf, who was also interviewed on Channel 13 opposite a Shin Bet man, https://youtu.be/EdTlxyKDWys
And there too he presents some of the problems including this one, and the Shin Bet man simply refuses to answer the substance of the matter and just repeats statements that Yigal Amir confessed, etc. (At first he tries to say there was a hole only in the garment and not in the body, which is fantastic in itself—how did such a miracle happen? In any case, Shahaf says the doctor noted that there was indeed a bullet hole in the body from the front, and the Shin Bet man does not respond to him on that.)
It is simply unbelievable how much emotion this topic arouses, on the right and the left alike, to the point that there are almost no people to be found who are willing to discuss it substantively without descending into smears and claims that are irrelevant to the matter.