Eerie prescience of an art project that made Yigal Amir PM

Twenty-five years ago, an Israeli art student imagined Israel in 2023 as two Jewish states, one headed by Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin. What did he get right about Israel's descent into chaos?

Like so many Israelis, artist Asi Burak was deeply disturbed by the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. His solution a few years later: Tell a story about Israel in 2023 that a quarter-century on seems remarkably prescient.

It all started a year after the murder when Burak, then a visual communication student at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, designed an action figure in the form of Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir. The doll was equipped with a Book of Psalms, a 9mm handgun and a police vest.

In 1998, Burak decided that his final project would expand on the doll idea. He imagined a nightmare scenario for 25 years later: His Israel of 2023 is divided into two states – Israel and Judea.

The State of Judea is headed by Amir, who obtained power while still in prison. Members of the Judean military wing, the Judean Front, bombed the Dimona nuclear reactor, took it over and threatened to use a doomsday weapon.

Burak, who lives in New York, is a senior executive at a computer game company and the man behind two successful video games: PeaceMaker, which hinges on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Half the Sky, which is designed to promote women’s rights in Africa and Asia.

This year, his student vision no longer seems like a game. “When I came to Israel, it suddenly hit me that this is the year – and just then the video started going crazy on the internet too. It’s a very ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, suddenly a student project I did has all this meaning and impact, but on the other hand, I wish I’d been completely wrong. My whole family is in Israel. People are very worried. It’s very intense.”