This is a Likud election poster for the 1992 Israeli elections. The poster, featuring blue writing and the Likud party’s logo, includes a quote from Yitzhak Rabin, apparently from a press release in the 1970s: “It doesn’t bother me if I need a visa to travel to Gush Etzion.” The quote suggests that Rabin didn’t this block of settlements being separated from Israel. The Likud logo includes a flag-design design on the letter lamed of the word Likud. The slogan “1 Large Likud Opposing All the Left” looks to position the party as the only relevant opponent to the views of Rabin and the “Left.” The design at the bottom is of a voting slip with the letters MACHAL, which represented the Likud party.
Rabin made this statement at a seminar for Bnei Akiva branch coordinators held in the Knesset on February 7, 1974 (Tu B’Shvat). His words implied that Jews could continue to live in Gush Etzion, leaving open the issue of access to Jerusalem from this area. According to Kfar Etzion resident Yohanan Ben Yaakov, who attended the seminar, Rabin later asserted that he did not intend to give up Gush Etzion. The Likud election poster uses this statement from the 1970s to warn voters against voting for the Labour Party headed by Rabin, implying that if the left was to form the next government, all Israeli citizens would require a visa to travel to Gush Etzion, which is in the West Bank. By this, the Likud is referring to Rabin and the Labour parties views on the settlements in Judea and Samaria. According to the poster, only a large Likud can defeat the left-wing parties and prevent such a state of affairs.
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1992 Israeli Elections – The election campaign for the 13th Knesset was one of the most important and influential in Israel’s history. The Likud, which had been in power since the political upheaval in 1977, had lost some of its influence, while the Labour Party had strengthened. The election results led to the establishment of a left-wing government led by Yitzhak Rabin. This caused significant changes in the political arena including the signing of the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan.
Yitzhak Rabin – Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem in 1922. After high school, Rabin volunteered to join the Haganah’s elite fighting unit, the Palmach, where he rose to become chief operations officer. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel, Rabin joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and served for 27 years. During the War of Independence, Rabin was the commander of the Harel Brigade which fought on the road to Jerusalem as well as in battles in the city. He continued to serve in different military roles over the years, and in 1967 he was appointed chief of staff. Under Rabin’s command, the IDF achieved victory in the Six-Day War of 1967. After retiring from the IDF, Rabin became Israeli ambassador to the United States. Upon his return from the United States, he joined the Labour Party and was elected to the Knesset in 1973. He was appointed minister of labour and subsequently, after Golda Meir’s resignation in 1974 due to the Yom Kippur War investigation, he became prime minister. He held this position until 1977, when he resigned due to the discovery of an illegal international bank account he held jointly with his wife. Rabin served a second term as prime minister from 1992 until his assassination in 1995. Yitzhak Rabin was the first Sabra (native-born Israeli) to be prime minister. Some of the major events in his career included ordering Operation Entebbe, signing the Oslo Accords, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, and signing a peace treaty with Jordan. The Israeli public was very divided in its opinion of the Oslo peace treaties and the concept of trading land for peace. This controversy culminated in Yigal Amir’s assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, while he was attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv. After his death, a blood-soaked piece of paper with the lyrics to “Shir L’Shalom” (The Song for Peace), which he had sung during the rally, was found in his pocket. Rabin’s funeral at Mt. Herzl was attended by heads of state from all around the world.
Likud – The Likud is a secular, centre-right political party in Israel. Based historically on revisionist ideology, the Likud party was formed in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon as a merger between several right-wing parties: Gachal (itself a merger of Herut and the Liberal party), the Free Centre National List, and the Movement of Greater Israel. After many years in opposition, the Likud won the elections in 1977, the first time that a right-wing party won a majority of the votes. Since then, Likud has formed most of Israel’s governments under Menachem Begin, Itzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon. Likud’s ideology is based on the belief that Israel has to maintain a strong military force against its neighbours. Despite its reluctance to negotiate with Arab neighbours that threat Israel’s existence the Likud was in fact the first party to sign a peace treaty with an Arab country: the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979. Likewise, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in 2009, known as the Bar-Ilan Speech, which endorsed the creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel. The Likud party emphasises the Jewish right to settle in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and, formerly, in the Gaza Strip and sees the Jordan River as Israel’s permanent eastern border. With regards to the economy, the Likud supports a free-market capitalist and liberal agenda. The Likud supports preservation of the status quo on issues of religion and state but is associated with a more traditional and nationalist approach to religion and culture in Israel.
Gush Etzion – Gush Etzion, also known as the Etzion Bloc or the Gush, is a group of Israeli settlements in the Judean hills, south of Jerusalem. Gush Etzion originally consisted of four kibbutzim – religious and secular – that were founded in the 1940s on land purchased by the Zionist movement in the 1920s. In the 1948 War of Independence, the kibbutzim were destroyed, many of the residents were killed, and others were imprisoned in Jordan. From 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967, the Jewish settlements of Gush Etzion were abandoned. In 1967, a group of children of the Gush, led by Chanan Porat, who had been evacuated from their homes before the War of Independence, returned to Gush Etzion. Today, Gush Etzion, located 10 minutes from Jerusalem, comprises 22 settlements including the towns Efrat and Beitar Eilit, the villages Alon Shvut, Elazar, and Neve Daniel and the kibbutzim Kfar Etzion, Migdal Oz, and Rosh Zurim. More than 70,000 people live in this area. The political situation of the area is unclear; while Gush Etzion is considered illegal according to international law, others dispute this, referring to the fact that this area has been Jewish for almost 100 years.