Re: "...Why did the Israeli government want to replace Rabin with Peres?..."
The Left wanted to smear the Nationalist camp & frame all loyal Israelis as "assassins" and "enemies of peace".
So, they set up the whole thing over a period of months to portray the typical Yeshivah student as the stereotype of the "murderous", "anti-peace", "anti-Arab", "racist" "yamulke-wearing extremist" cutting down the Man Of Peace.
Thus, the media would have all the fuel to burn the entire right wing nationalist and patriot religious Jews in the fires of an all out media "hatchet job" 24 hrs. a day...making Rabin a "Martyr for Peace", naming everything in the country after him, making holidays for him, museums for him, and in essence undercutting any chance that the Israeli public would wise up and rally behind a Nationalist leader who would ditch the phony "Oslo" Treaty.
It's the oldest Bolshevik trick in the book...practiced over and over in Communist countries to turn public opinion the way the dictators choose.
1. Arrange for someone to be at the site of your leader's shooting...have the secret police seize that someone, plant weapons on him, and immediately announce to the national media that person's name, address, occupation, political views, and state his "motive" for the crime.
2. Then, the #2 man who actually arranged the crime, becomes #1, and the rest of the gullible populace begs him to continue in the sinister policies of the recently deceased "martyr".
3. Anyone "wise to their tricks" who dares to expose the deviousness of the Left, is shouted down as "a racist, right-wing extremist who caused the assassination to happen!"
4. Works like a charm...didn't it?