CRI听力:Israel Marks 20th Anniv. of Rabin's Assassination

During an official memorial ceremony for former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compares the current wave of violence with the security situation that Rabin faced before his assassination.

"Rabin knew that the terrorists aspire to shed our blood, to uproot us from our homeland - the same Palestinian terror and recalcitrance that continues until today. Terrorism won't bring us down. Its perpetrators did not defeat us in the past and will not defeat us in the future. We will continue reaching out a hand for peace to whoever recognizes our right to live."

Tensions have been mounting for weeks in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Since the beginning of October, fierce clashes have brought the Israeli death toll to 10, while Israeli forces have shot dead at least 60 Palestinians.

It is reported on Monday that Netanyahu is considering revoking residency permits from Arabs living in east Jerusalem as a measure to deal with the spate of attacks.

The current situation reminds more Israelis of Rabin, who finalized in 1990s the Oslo Accords which were heralded then as steps toward enduring peace. However, he was assassinated by a Jewish extremist on November 4, 1995, during a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

Many people attending Monday's ceremony say the government should follow Rabin's steps to continue with the peace process.

"People loved Rabin. He gave us great hope. He gave us choice to live with the Palestinians. He did it only for the existing of the Jewish nation."

"We need to start to speak. You don't make peace with somebody that you love. You make peace with somebody you don't like, with enemy. If you don't have peace you don't have anything here. I don't want my children to live in war. I want them to live in peace."

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator who witnessed the signing of the Oslo Accords, gives a relatively positive comment on Rabin's efforts for peace.

"He made a serious and substantive transformation and presupposition vis-a-vis the Palestinians. I think he came to recognition that there is no military solution and therefore there is a need for a political solution, so in that sense he did change the course of Israeli history, for a short while, unfortunately."

But she says things have been going downhill since, and that the only way to end the decades of conflict is to end the occupation.

"If there is any political will to see an end to this horrific situation, then we need to see an end to the occupation, and from then on we can move ahead. Or I think the situation will continue to degenerate and it will generate greater violence and extremists. There is no way in which you can build a state under occupation."

For CRI, I'm Qian Shanming.