Unity Rises From Grief at Memorial for Rabin : Israel: Mood is somber as 200,000 gather at assassination site. Many vow to continue slain leader’s pursuit of peace.

More than 200,000 Israelis jammed the square Sunday night where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was slain, turning a mass memorial into a plea for national unity and a vow to continue his pursuit of peace.

Rabin was shot to death by a right-wing Jewish law student after a peace rally in the square Nov. 4. The somber mood of the overwhelmingly secular, youthful crowd that streamed back Sunday night to what is now called Yitzhak Rabin Square contrasted sharply with the festive atmosphere that had filled the square eight days earlier.

Police revelations that Rabin may have been the victim of a right-wing plot, rather than a lone gunman, have shaken the nation to the core and heightened tensions between secular and religious Israelis. Those who attended Sunday’s rally seemed to cling to one another, as if to reassure themselves that the nation is stronger than the cultural chasm Rabin’s death has revealed.

There were very few knitted skullcaps, the badge of members of the nationalist-religious camp, visible in Sunday’s vast crowd. But the young people who attended seemed desperate to emphasize how grief has created a sense of unity among Israelis and to downplay the bitter political fight that has erupted among their elders.

“I came here wearing this shirt because I want to show that we all share the grief and the shock about this act of madness,” said Guy Zachs, a 19-year-old from Haifa who sported a T-shirt of the opposition Likud Party’s youth movement. “Even though we disagree about policies, we have to be united against violence.”

Speaking to a graveside memorial before the rally at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery attended by members of Rabin’s Labor Party, acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed his commitment to pursuing his predecessor’s peace policies. But he also warned of the dangers posed to the nation by “a lot of people on the edge of insanity who think that they are God’s messengers. In fact, they’re the devil’s disciples.”

Rabin’s family attended both the Labor Party memorial and the rally, and called for his peacemaking efforts to continue.

“I appeal to you, Shimon Peres, to continue to guide the Israeli nation to peace in the path and spirit of Yitzhak,” Rabin’s widow, Leah, told the sea of people, who spilled into side streets of the plaza, formerly known as Kings of Israel Square.

“Now the silent majority will be silent no longer,” she said.

Shortly after Rabin was gunned down, Leah told an interviewer that she had always believed that a silent majority of Israelis supported her husband’s peacemaking efforts. She said she wished that more of his supporters had confronted right-wing extremists when they demonstrated in front of their home, calling him a murderer and a traitor.

After a week of convulsive national mourning, Sunday’s crowd seemed exhausted and emotionally spent by the outpouring of grief and remorse that has virtually paralyzed the country.

But many said they came to the rally to show Leah Rabin and the nation that they actively support the government’s ongoing peace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states.

“For me, coming here opens a circle and closes one,” said Shifra Brown, 35, from Kadima, a cooperative farming community. Brown said that she had always supported Rabin’s peacemaking efforts, “but silently.” Now, she said, if right-wing demonstrators publicly accuse Peres of being a traitor or a murderer, “maybe I will go to Peres’ house on a Friday afternoon and give him my support.”

Brown and many others at the rally spoke of the togetherness they felt last week during the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning period for the dead, and they spoke of wanting to hold on to that feeling.

But other Israelis say that Rabin’s assassination has brought to the surface a long-simmering culture clash between secular Israelis and nationalist-religious Israelis that began to turn ugly just days after Rabin was buried.

In Jerusalem on Sunday, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the nation’s anger over Rabin’s death is creating a backlash against legitimate opposition to the government’s peace efforts.

“The second risk is that there shall be attempts to shut mouths, to de-legitimize the political opponent, to scare to the point of silencing the argument,” Netanyahu told a gathering of Likud Parliament members. “Without opposition, there is no democracy.”

Nationalist-religious Israelis form the hard core of the nearly 50% of the nation that expresses opposition to territorial compromise with the Palestinians. They view the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty as a threat to the state’s existence and the spiritual redemption of the Jewish people.

The half of the nation that supports the peacemaking process, however, includes both religious and secular Israelis who say the potential benefits of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are worth the risks inherent in making peace with an enemy who for decades refused to acknowledge the right for the Jewish state to exist.

“We didn’t open our mouths before, and we are so sorry,” said Joy Ravon, a 47-year-old immigrant from South Africa who said she always supported Rabin.

“I saw the writing on the wall, and I kept quiet for far too long,” Ravon said. “The division [between those who supported Rabin’s efforts and those who opposed them] was there long before, but now it has come out into the open. Now, the quiet majority has come out into the open.”

She described the quiet majority as those Israelis from all walks of life--secular and religious--who are tired of sending their children off to war, who are eager to lead normal lives and who are convinced that the only way to achieve those goals is to make peace with their enemies. It was to these people that Rabin spoke, she said.

“Rabin was the leader who could do it, the man with the experience in the military and in diplomacy, the man people could trust,” Ravon said.

More than 2,000 police officers fanned out through the square Sunday night.

But the evening passed with nothing more than occasional warnings to the crowd not to push, for fear of starting a stampede. A parade of the nation’s top pop stars and folk singers sang sentimental songs of peace, friendship and loss. The crowd listened quietly, sometimes joining in, but refrained from applauding the performers. Instead, groups of teen-agers tended memorial candles and continued writing graffiti messages of peace and apologies to Rabin on the plaza’s paving stones and surrounding walls.