National Union – National Religious Party [until it chooses a new name] MK Nissan Slomiansky is used to being the only man wearing a kippa backstage every year at the annual commemoration for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Being an MK, he is allowed access to the backstage area of the Square, where he can mingle with the VIPs.

This, the thirteenth year of the commemoration, which is always held in Kikar Rabin in central Tel-Aviv, was no different. Backstage there were hundreds of people mulling about, mingling, remembering, renewing acquaintances. Amongst the crowd were the elite of Israeli society: current and former politicians from the Labor and Meretz parties; friends and associates of the Rabin family; pilots, admirals and generals; business and social leaders; public relations consultants and publicists; television personalities, celebrities, singers, journalists and other assorted VIPs. All secular, the vast majority Ashkenazi, well-off, wearing smart clothes.

Slomiansky feels lonely and isolated, frustrated at being the only representative of the settler movement present at the commemoration. It’s the same feeling every year. But still he keeps coming back, year after year, without fail. He knew Yitzhak Rabin well, and worked with him at various junctures. He rejects the extremists in the settler movement who justify the use of political murder. “They are the fringes, and they do not represent the settler movement at all. If the Israel Security Agency knows of people who are planning political violence, then it needs to arrest them,” he tells The Jerusalem Post.

A former Meretz MK approaches him, smiles and shakes his hand: “Kol Hakavod [well done] for coming here, year after year,” she says.

While the majority of those present in Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square on Saturday night were secular, and many were wearing the blue-shirt uniforms of the Zionist Labor Youth movement, there were religious people in the crowd. Across the Square, large balloons bearing posters of Meretz, Labor and Hashomer Hatzair towered over the masses. But the lack of religious and right wing representation amongst the organizers and VIPs backstage has Slomiansky worried. “They’re [settlers] staying away from this event every year because its not designed to include them,” Slomiansky says.

Slomiansky says he’s spoken to the Rabin family every year, warning them that the annual commemoration is driving the Right and Left further away from each other because the annual event has been hijacked by the Left. “I’ve asked them to change the message, to make it more inclusive,” he tells The Jerusalem Post. Looking across the packed Square, Slomiansky says that the thousands of people present is, actually, just a small number, and that this annual event will continue to draw only the same people every year, and not a wider segment of the public. “They could have brought many more people; the whole country could have been here. This event has turned political, with each one using it for his political needs,” he says, adding that the event is not an inclusive one. “I feel like this every year. I read the slogans on the posters,” he says, pointing at one that reads “Expel the settlers.”

While all those invited to speak at the event did speak of national unity and decried the use of political violence, they also spoke of the peace process and the need to formulate borders for Israel. “Its all words, the songs, the speeches, the slogans – just words.

Slomiansky, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Elkana, came here alone. His neighbors know he comes here every year, but there is never anyone from the settlement who joins him. “I come because I’m stubborn. I try and spread the message that this should not be a sectarian or political event, but one for the whole nation. I haven’t succeeded yet, but I’m stubborn, and I’ll keep on coming,” he says.

He believes the central message of the annual Rabin assassination anniversary should be the total rejection of violence in general, and political violence in particular. “Our land has become extremely violent, and I’m not talking just about settler violence. These days people are being killed over parking spots and looking at girls in clubs. This means only one thing: that our education system is not working, that we are not educating for the right values,” he says.

Labor MK Colette Avital rejects the notion that the annual event has been hijacked by left wing parties. “No actual invitations were sent out, but everybody knows that the whole public is invited, the right wing just didn’t show up,” she says.