Conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin have been around almost since the night of the assassination on November 4, 1995. They have increased and expanded, however, as the “weeds” — the radical right elements — gained legitimacy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive governments. The conspiracy theory was heard again this week, and it was not from disciples of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a group that even the far right has considered marginal for the past two decades. This time, it was voiced by a well-known professor, Orientalist Mordechai Kedar.

Kedar is a senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University and has accumulated quite a following over the past few years. He is admired by the radical right not only for his extensive knowledge but mainly because he uses that knowledge and his title to interpret certain facts in a way that is in accordance with his extreme right-wing views.

These days, even Netanyahu’s most ardent supporters — the ones who see him as a victim of the left, the media and the justice system, all of which supposedly want to eliminate him politically — find a common language with Kedar. That is why he was invited to deliver a speech at a demonstration that took place Oct. 29 near the home of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit — the man who will ultimately decide whether Netanyahu will be indicted.

It is probably worth noting that at almost the exact same time as Netanyahu's speech, Justice Minister Amir Ohana delivered a speech of his own, lashing out against the State Prosecution’s Office and breathing new life into the conspiracy theory of a deep state that is plotting all sorts of devious schemes. He called it "a prosecutor’s office within the State Prosecutor’s Office."