Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
-
-
4.1 • 16 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and one of the New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of the Year.
The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel’s recent history, and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. In Killing a King, Dan Ephron relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace, and the other plotted murder. "Carefully reported, clearly presented, concise and gripping," It stands as "a reminder that what happened on a Tel Aviv sidewalk 20 years ago is as important to understanding Israel as any of its wars" (Matti Friedman, The Washington Post).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Ephron, former Jerusalem bureau chief of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, relates the major events leading to the November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in this clearly written, well-paced book. He tracks the activities and thoughts of both Rabin and assassin Yigal Amir, including such important ancillary matters as the rivalry between Rabin and then-foreign-minister Shimon Peres, as well as the increasingly vitriolic antigovernment rhetoric of the Israeli religious right; for example, following the signing and implementation of the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman accused the government of collaborating with the Arabs. Ephron addresses the assassination's political repercussions and introduces readers to the colorful, somewhat mysterious figure of Avishai Raviv, an agent of the Shin Bet (the Israeli Security Agency) who was also a perpetrator of anti-Palestinian acts of terror. Amir never expressed remorse for the murder, and today "fully a quarter of Israelis" believe his prison sentence should be commuted. In contrast, Dalia Rabin, the late prime minister's daughter, told Ephron, "I don't feel I'm part of what most people in this country are willing to do." Ephron's book is the best account to date of the Rabin assassination and its aftermath. Illus.
