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Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
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. Killing a King 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.
Dan Ephron, who reported from the Middle East for much of the past two decades, covered both the rally where Rabin was killed and the subsequent murder trial. He describes how Rabin, a former general who led the army in the Six-Day War of 1967, embraced his nemesis, Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, and set about trying to resolve the twentieth century’s most vexing conflict. He recounts in agonizing detail how extremists on both sides undermined the peace process with ghastly violence. And he reconstructs the relentless scheming of Amir, a twenty-five-year-old law student and Jewish extremist who believed that Rabin’s peace effort amounted to a betrayal of Israel and the Jewish people. As Amir stalked Rabin over many months, the agency charged with safeguarding the Israeli leader missed key clues, overlooked intelligence reports, and then failed to protect him at the critical moment, exactly twenty years ago. It was the biggest security blunder in the agency’s history.
Through the prism of the assassination, much about Israel today comes into focus, from the paralysis in peacemaking to the fraught relationship between current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama. Based on Israeli police reports, interviews, confessions, and the cooperation of both Rabin’s and Amir’s families, Killing a King is a tightly coiled narrative that reaches an inevitable, shattering conclusion. One can’t help but wonder what Israel would look like today had Rabin lived.
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. Killing a King 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.
Dan Ephron, who reported from the Middle East for much of the past two decades, covered both the rally where Rabin was killed and the subsequent murder trial. He describes how Rabin, a former general who led the army in the Six-Day War of 1967, embraced his nemesis, Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, and set about trying to resolve the twentieth century’s most vexing conflict. He recounts in agonizing detail how extremists on both sides undermined the peace process with ghastly violence. And he reconstructs the relentless scheming of Amir, a twenty-five-year-old law student and Jewish extremist who believed that Rabin’s peace effort amounted to a betrayal of Israel and the Jewish people. As Amir stalked Rabin over many months, the agency charged with safeguarding the Israeli leader missed key clues, overlooked intelligence reports, and then failed to protect him at the critical moment, exactly twenty years ago. It was the biggest security blunder in the agency’s history.
Through the prism of the assassination, much about Israel today comes into focus, from the paralysis in peacemaking to the fraught relationship between current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama. Based on Israeli police reports, interviews, confessions, and the cooperation of both Rabin’s and Amir’s families, Killing a King is a tightly coiled narrative that reaches an inevitable, shattering conclusion. One can’t help but wonder what Israel would look like today had Rabin lived.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 19, 2015
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October 25, 2015
The past few weeks has witnessed an increase in violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians have resorted to lone wolf knife attacks against innocent Israeli citizens and the Israeli response has been to kill the perpetrators on the spot. The lack of any progress toward negotiations is part of the reason for the uptick in violence that has led to the current situation. The current climate of violence and extremism in the region also has contributed to the lack of any progress between the two sides. The failure of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians since the heady days of 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed are long gone. It was at that time under the leadership of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin that the hope that the conflict might finally be settled was spreading among Israelis and Palestinians, but the assassination of Rabin on November 4, 1995 put an end to the process and led to a spiraling of events that bring us to the current impasse and violence. Understanding the mindset that led to Rabin’s death is important in trying to make sense of the tragedy. For the first time in Israeli history a political assassination occurred whereby an Israeli killed an Israeli. Dan Ephron’s new book, KILLING THE KING: THE ASSASSINATION OF YITZCHAK RABIN AND THE REMAKING OF ISRAEL provides an intimate picture of the fissures that exist in Israeli society and politics. The book would be considered a political thriller if it were fiction, the problem is that the narrative is true.
Ephron’s premise that the assassination of Rabin put an end to any realistic peace process following his death is accurate and shifted the Israeli approach to negotiations from the pragmatists like Shimon Peres and Rabin to the ideologues like Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics of the peace process argue that Yasir Arafat would not have delivered on his promises after the signing of Oslo II that gave the Palestinians control of seven cities in the West Bank, including Hebron, in the same way he turned down the deal offered by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000. It appeared that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza was very possible in November, 1995, but because of the actions of Yigal Amir, a religious extremist and ideologue, who assassinated Rabin we will never know. Ephron a Newsweek bureau chief in Jerusalem has written an important book that describes the two years that led up to Rabin’s death and the implications for the period that followed. A period that saw the peace process stymied by violence and intransigence from both sides of the conflict.
Ephron describes in detail the right wing reaction in Israel to the secret negotiations that resulted in the Oslo Accords of 1993 between the Israeli government and the Palestinians. He further describes the violence that was initiated by extremists on both sides whether Hamas suicide attacks and Israeli settler actions like that of Baruch Goldstein. The treaty signing itself is evidence how difficult future negotiations would be as Rabin was very wary of Arafat and the agreement had numerous holes in it that had to be dealt with in future negotiations. But as talks progressed the Israeli settler movement saw it as a threat to their future existence. It would take a long time for the people around the Israeli Prime Minister to realize that he faced extreme danger because of his authorship of the peace process with the Palestinians, once they did Rabin himself did not want to cooperate with increased protection. One thing is clear that as soon as Oslo was made public, Yigal Amir believed that Rabin’s actions were treason.
Amir whose family had immigrated to Israel from Yemen, grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish home and attended strictly orthodox schools. Upon graduating from high school he turned down a religious deferment and joined the Israeli Defense Force, spending his time in Gaza during the Intifada of 1988 were his belief that Arabs would kill Jews at every opportunity, was reaffirmed and that only ruthless reprisals would deter them. Ephron does a nice job tracing the evolution of Amir’s beliefs. He came to the conclusion in a broader theological doctrine, “one that empowered him to judge for himself – to “fathom God’s Will” – whether political leaders were honoring the Bible or violating it.” (39) Amir believed that Jews had an obligation to settle the West Bank and Gaza rather than wait for God to secure their sovereignty over the territory and any politician who blocked this went against the will of God. Amir would set up a group of students called, “Students for Security,” and actively worked to create a militia to defend the rights of settlers. As rabbis began to preach that soldiers did not have to obey orders by the government to dismantle settlements arguing, “Even if the king orders you to violate the laws of the Torah, it is forbidden to obey,” fostered an already volatile situation.
Amir’s anger was also fueled by the social schisms that existed in Israeli society. Ephron is quite accurate when he describes the resentments that existed between the Ashkenazi, Eastern European ethnicity of Israel’s ruling class up until 1977, of which Rabin was an example, with Sephardim, Jews who had emigrated from Arab countries when Israel was created who suffered many years of discrimination. The fact that Amir’s family was from Yemen just exacerbated his feelings. The core of Amir’s belief rests on the Talmudic argument that would justify his assassination of Rabin. The Talmudic concept of “rodef” referred to a person who pursues another person with the intent to kill them, “rodef” means the pursuer. “The law of the pursuer, or “din rodef” permitted a bystander to kill the aggressor in order to save innocent victims.” Amir rationalized that Rabin fit the definition of “rodef” as his policies were a threat to the safety of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. Amir also decided that Rabin “was a ‘moser’, a person who handed Jews over to a hostile power, in this case the newly formed Palestinian Authority.” (94-5) Amir argued that he had the right to kill Rabin on order to save the settlers. This argument was already surfacing in the extreme religious press and among certain rabbis thereby reaffirming Amir’s beliefs.
Ephron presents a detailed narrative in how Amir stalked Rabin for three years and how he had missed at least three opportunities to kill him. Ephron will take the reader inside the Israeli intelligence community as it belatedly came to realize the threat the religious right presented as they demonstrated and constantly referred to Rabin as a Nazi, a traitor, and murderer at rallies and sit in at his residence and the Knesset (Israeli parliament). Ephron walks the reader through the murder in real time and once it takes place it is difficult for Israelis to accept the fact that one of their own killed the Prime Minister. What is most disturbing about the assassination is Amir’s attitude after he is captured. He is euphoric and proud of himself and firmly believes that he has saved Israel from its own government. Amir details to interrogators his beliefs and exactly how he went about murdering Rabin and shows no remorse. For Amir and his followers “Rabin had defied biblical injunctions and undermined the redemption process that messianists believed had been underway since 1967.” (161) Following the assassination Ephron analyzes the investigations and recriminations that resulted from Rabin’s murder. He also delves into the politics that pitted Peres against Netanyahu that saw the Likud candidate victorious in the next election thereby ending any possibility that peace talks would be successful in the future.
The book is very disturbing when one thinks about the future of peace in the region. The current government of Benjamin Netanyahu is dependent upon the right wing settler movement for his coalition government, as was evidenced by his racial appeal during the last election. Netanyahu was a leader of the Likud Party in 1995 and many argue assisted in stirring the pot against Rabin that resulted in his assassination. I cannot imagine that the current Israeli government will take part in any meaningful negotiations, as if it does its coalition would likely collapse. Ephron’s book may read like a political thriller, but it is a description of the reality of Israeli politics and society which seems split down the middle in its attitude toward peace.
Ephron’s premise that the assassination of Rabin put an end to any realistic peace process following his death is accurate and shifted the Israeli approach to negotiations from the pragmatists like Shimon Peres and Rabin to the ideologues like Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics of the peace process argue that Yasir Arafat would not have delivered on his promises after the signing of Oslo II that gave the Palestinians control of seven cities in the West Bank, including Hebron, in the same way he turned down the deal offered by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000. It appeared that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza was very possible in November, 1995, but because of the actions of Yigal Amir, a religious extremist and ideologue, who assassinated Rabin we will never know. Ephron a Newsweek bureau chief in Jerusalem has written an important book that describes the two years that led up to Rabin’s death and the implications for the period that followed. A period that saw the peace process stymied by violence and intransigence from both sides of the conflict.
Ephron describes in detail the right wing reaction in Israel to the secret negotiations that resulted in the Oslo Accords of 1993 between the Israeli government and the Palestinians. He further describes the violence that was initiated by extremists on both sides whether Hamas suicide attacks and Israeli settler actions like that of Baruch Goldstein. The treaty signing itself is evidence how difficult future negotiations would be as Rabin was very wary of Arafat and the agreement had numerous holes in it that had to be dealt with in future negotiations. But as talks progressed the Israeli settler movement saw it as a threat to their future existence. It would take a long time for the people around the Israeli Prime Minister to realize that he faced extreme danger because of his authorship of the peace process with the Palestinians, once they did Rabin himself did not want to cooperate with increased protection. One thing is clear that as soon as Oslo was made public, Yigal Amir believed that Rabin’s actions were treason.
Amir whose family had immigrated to Israel from Yemen, grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish home and attended strictly orthodox schools. Upon graduating from high school he turned down a religious deferment and joined the Israeli Defense Force, spending his time in Gaza during the Intifada of 1988 were his belief that Arabs would kill Jews at every opportunity, was reaffirmed and that only ruthless reprisals would deter them. Ephron does a nice job tracing the evolution of Amir’s beliefs. He came to the conclusion in a broader theological doctrine, “one that empowered him to judge for himself – to “fathom God’s Will” – whether political leaders were honoring the Bible or violating it.” (39) Amir believed that Jews had an obligation to settle the West Bank and Gaza rather than wait for God to secure their sovereignty over the territory and any politician who blocked this went against the will of God. Amir would set up a group of students called, “Students for Security,” and actively worked to create a militia to defend the rights of settlers. As rabbis began to preach that soldiers did not have to obey orders by the government to dismantle settlements arguing, “Even if the king orders you to violate the laws of the Torah, it is forbidden to obey,” fostered an already volatile situation.
Amir’s anger was also fueled by the social schisms that existed in Israeli society. Ephron is quite accurate when he describes the resentments that existed between the Ashkenazi, Eastern European ethnicity of Israel’s ruling class up until 1977, of which Rabin was an example, with Sephardim, Jews who had emigrated from Arab countries when Israel was created who suffered many years of discrimination. The fact that Amir’s family was from Yemen just exacerbated his feelings. The core of Amir’s belief rests on the Talmudic argument that would justify his assassination of Rabin. The Talmudic concept of “rodef” referred to a person who pursues another person with the intent to kill them, “rodef” means the pursuer. “The law of the pursuer, or “din rodef” permitted a bystander to kill the aggressor in order to save innocent victims.” Amir rationalized that Rabin fit the definition of “rodef” as his policies were a threat to the safety of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. Amir also decided that Rabin “was a ‘moser’, a person who handed Jews over to a hostile power, in this case the newly formed Palestinian Authority.” (94-5) Amir argued that he had the right to kill Rabin on order to save the settlers. This argument was already surfacing in the extreme religious press and among certain rabbis thereby reaffirming Amir’s beliefs.
Ephron presents a detailed narrative in how Amir stalked Rabin for three years and how he had missed at least three opportunities to kill him. Ephron will take the reader inside the Israeli intelligence community as it belatedly came to realize the threat the religious right presented as they demonstrated and constantly referred to Rabin as a Nazi, a traitor, and murderer at rallies and sit in at his residence and the Knesset (Israeli parliament). Ephron walks the reader through the murder in real time and once it takes place it is difficult for Israelis to accept the fact that one of their own killed the Prime Minister. What is most disturbing about the assassination is Amir’s attitude after he is captured. He is euphoric and proud of himself and firmly believes that he has saved Israel from its own government. Amir details to interrogators his beliefs and exactly how he went about murdering Rabin and shows no remorse. For Amir and his followers “Rabin had defied biblical injunctions and undermined the redemption process that messianists believed had been underway since 1967.” (161) Following the assassination Ephron analyzes the investigations and recriminations that resulted from Rabin’s murder. He also delves into the politics that pitted Peres against Netanyahu that saw the Likud candidate victorious in the next election thereby ending any possibility that peace talks would be successful in the future.
The book is very disturbing when one thinks about the future of peace in the region. The current government of Benjamin Netanyahu is dependent upon the right wing settler movement for his coalition government, as was evidenced by his racial appeal during the last election. Netanyahu was a leader of the Likud Party in 1995 and many argue assisted in stirring the pot against Rabin that resulted in his assassination. I cannot imagine that the current Israeli government will take part in any meaningful negotiations, as if it does its coalition would likely collapse. Ephron’s book may read like a political thriller, but it is a description of the reality of Israeli politics and society which seems split down the middle in its attitude toward peace.
December 26, 2017
This book is very similar to Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. It is an in depth chronicle of the intertwining paths of the hunter (Amir) and the hunted (Rabin).
One of the key assumptions this book shattered was that Shabak (also known as Shin Bet) was not clued in to the threat of Jewish extremists. In March of 1995, Carmi Gillon, a man who had spent more of his career operating against Jewish terrorists that rather than Arabs, became the new head of Shabak. (He was in charge of thwarting an attempt by the Jewish Underground to blow up the Dome of the Rock in 1984) Shabak had informants within the settler community (one was in contact with Amir) and was concerned enough about assassination to put out a generic description of Amir (“a short Yemeni guy with curly hair”) and developed a profile of a potential assassin (which Amir partially fit).
Despite the intelligence that was gathered, these concerns did not seem to filter down to the agents at the field level. The notion that Rabin might be killed by a fellow Jew just seemed instinctually implausible.
One of the key assumptions this book shattered was that Shabak (also known as Shin Bet) was not clued in to the threat of Jewish extremists. In March of 1995, Carmi Gillon, a man who had spent more of his career operating against Jewish terrorists that rather than Arabs, became the new head of Shabak. (He was in charge of thwarting an attempt by the Jewish Underground to blow up the Dome of the Rock in 1984) Shabak had informants within the settler community (one was in contact with Amir) and was concerned enough about assassination to put out a generic description of Amir (“a short Yemeni guy with curly hair”) and developed a profile of a potential assassin (which Amir partially fit).
Despite the intelligence that was gathered, these concerns did not seem to filter down to the agents at the field level. The notion that Rabin might be killed by a fellow Jew just seemed instinctually implausible.
February 7, 2016
Dan Ephron was the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for Newsweek magazine. Ephron did intensive research for this book. He searched through court records, obtained confessional material, conducted family interviews, and dissected police reports in order to piece together the story. The book narrows in on the rally during which Rabin was killed, and then shifts its focus to the murder trial of the assassin.
Ephron traces the parallel stories of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his assassin Yigal Amir for the two years leading up to the assassination in 1995. Ephron examines the two men’s thoughts and actions placing them within the context of the anti-government rhetoric of the Israeli religious rightwing. Ephron shows how the assassination, with its far-reaching political repercussions, found a turning point for Israel, derailing the delicate peace process that had been in place.
Ephron attempts to interpret the lessons learned from the dissolution of the peace talks and speculates about how the Middle East might look today if Rabin had not been assassinated. I enjoyed the forensic drama at the end of the book regarding the mysterious hole in Rabin shirt. The book provides the reader with a better understanding of the political situation in Israel. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Assaf Cohen does a good job narrating the book.
Ephron traces the parallel stories of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his assassin Yigal Amir for the two years leading up to the assassination in 1995. Ephron examines the two men’s thoughts and actions placing them within the context of the anti-government rhetoric of the Israeli religious rightwing. Ephron shows how the assassination, with its far-reaching political repercussions, found a turning point for Israel, derailing the delicate peace process that had been in place.
Ephron attempts to interpret the lessons learned from the dissolution of the peace talks and speculates about how the Middle East might look today if Rabin had not been assassinated. I enjoyed the forensic drama at the end of the book regarding the mysterious hole in Rabin shirt. The book provides the reader with a better understanding of the political situation in Israel. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Assaf Cohen does a good job narrating the book.
December 25, 2016
How quickly memory fades. Rabin was assassinated in 1995. In some ways, it feels so long ago and in others it feels fresh. In some ways the world in which those events transpired is an ancient memory, in others, it's more relevant than ever.
Reading Ephron's excellent book, I turned melancholy and philosophical. By all ways of measuring them, Yigal Amir was successful in his objectives. It pains me to write that. It pains me to THINK it. But it's true. Ephron reports at the book's end that roughly 25% of Israelis favor commuting Amir's sentence. That still makes it a distant possibility. But not as distant as it was, and not as distant as I'd like. In the past few months, living in America, we've come to be a bit cynical about polls and probabilities. It's not that I think Amir poses any further threat to Israel or innocent people; it's that I find it horrifying that a quarter of the people of a country Yitzhak Rabin fought to establish as a secular democracy can come to look to people like the Amirs as heroes, to the Bible rather than their leaders for foreign policy philosophy.
Reading Ephron's excellent book, I turned melancholy and philosophical. By all ways of measuring them, Yigal Amir was successful in his objectives. It pains me to write that. It pains me to THINK it. But it's true. Ephron reports at the book's end that roughly 25% of Israelis favor commuting Amir's sentence. That still makes it a distant possibility. But not as distant as it was, and not as distant as I'd like. In the past few months, living in America, we've come to be a bit cynical about polls and probabilities. It's not that I think Amir poses any further threat to Israel or innocent people; it's that I find it horrifying that a quarter of the people of a country Yitzhak Rabin fought to establish as a secular democracy can come to look to people like the Amirs as heroes, to the Bible rather than their leaders for foreign policy philosophy.
August 7, 2017
One Saturday afternoon in early November of 1995 I was watching CNN in my home in the Chicago suburbs. I don't know if the draw that day was my burgeoning fascination with politics and current events, or the fact that Darth Vader's voice announced "This is CNN" every 20 minutes, but there I was. And then there was breaking news; real breaking news, not the continuous state of breaking news that has become part of the 24 hour news cycle. There had been a shooting in Tel Aviv. I didn't know the name they mentioned; I barely understood where Israel was, but I could tell it was important and I went to tell my Mom. We watched the coverage for a while, and then I moved on to something else. It was the first international news event that I clearly remember (I was 12 at the time), and it is a memory that has stuck with me.
On November 4, 1995 a young Jewish religious fanatic fired three bullets, and committed (in my opinion) one of the most consequential killings of the 20th century. In 1993 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin negotiated the first step in a peace agreement with the Palestinian National Authority, led by Yassar Arafat. For the next two years a young Orthodox Jew named Yigal Amir would organize protests with his brother and friends as he stalked Rabin. Each clash between Palestinians and Israelis gave him hope that the deal would collapse, and each successful move toward peace furthered his belief that Rabin must die. As he formulated his plans the far right in Israel, along with the settlement movement, called Rabin a traitor, compared him to Hitler, and tacitly discussed hypothetical situations in which the killing of a fellow Jew would be acceptable under Jewish law. This movement had a charismatic young leader named Benjamin Netanyahu. The book continues after Rabin's death as the movement towards peace collapses, resulting in Netanyahu's election seven months later. Since Rabin's death there has been no meaningful movement or discussion of peace.
Middle East politics is complicated, and it is divisive. The book requires some basic understanding of the situation in Israel at the time, but it does a good job explaining the settlement movement and the major points of contention between Israel and her Arab neighbors. The vitriol that Rabin faced on the right sounded disturbingly familiar, as we come to the close of 8 years of Obama being called a traitor, being compared to Hitler, and seeing a stunning rise in racist and violent Nationalist chatter. After finishing it, I was filled with a profound sadness at what was lost that night. It wasn't just one man. It was all the men, women, and children who have died in this decades long conflict since then. I was also filled with anger at the shortsightedness and cut off your nose to spite your face attitude of the hardliners that have ruled Israel since Rabin's death. I won't get in to my opinions on religious rule; suffice it to say that fundamentalism in all its forms has done no lasting good in this world, and done much irreparable harm. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in international current events and Middle East relations.
On November 4, 1995 a young Jewish religious fanatic fired three bullets, and committed (in my opinion) one of the most consequential killings of the 20th century. In 1993 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin negotiated the first step in a peace agreement with the Palestinian National Authority, led by Yassar Arafat. For the next two years a young Orthodox Jew named Yigal Amir would organize protests with his brother and friends as he stalked Rabin. Each clash between Palestinians and Israelis gave him hope that the deal would collapse, and each successful move toward peace furthered his belief that Rabin must die. As he formulated his plans the far right in Israel, along with the settlement movement, called Rabin a traitor, compared him to Hitler, and tacitly discussed hypothetical situations in which the killing of a fellow Jew would be acceptable under Jewish law. This movement had a charismatic young leader named Benjamin Netanyahu. The book continues after Rabin's death as the movement towards peace collapses, resulting in Netanyahu's election seven months later. Since Rabin's death there has been no meaningful movement or discussion of peace.
Middle East politics is complicated, and it is divisive. The book requires some basic understanding of the situation in Israel at the time, but it does a good job explaining the settlement movement and the major points of contention between Israel and her Arab neighbors. The vitriol that Rabin faced on the right sounded disturbingly familiar, as we come to the close of 8 years of Obama being called a traitor, being compared to Hitler, and seeing a stunning rise in racist and violent Nationalist chatter. After finishing it, I was filled with a profound sadness at what was lost that night. It wasn't just one man. It was all the men, women, and children who have died in this decades long conflict since then. I was also filled with anger at the shortsightedness and cut off your nose to spite your face attitude of the hardliners that have ruled Israel since Rabin's death. I won't get in to my opinions on religious rule; suffice it to say that fundamentalism in all its forms has done no lasting good in this world, and done much irreparable harm. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in international current events and Middle East relations.
October 30, 2023
I reserved this book at the library on October 6, 2023. The timing could not have been more devastating.
This book tells the gripping tail of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, the political backdrop to his murder, and the political maelstrom that followed his death. With haunting detail, Ephron explains how a young religious Jewish law student at Bar Ilan University would shock the world by killing the Prime Minister of Israel and changing the course of Israeli politics to this day. The book gives much insight into Rabin as a leader and to the Oslo peace process he built with his unlikely partner in peace, Yasser Arafat.
Today, almost 30 years after Rabin’s murder and three weeks after Black Saturday - which will surely be forever a seminal moment in Israel’s history - the tragedy of this tale hit harder than ever. With 1400+ Israelis brutally murdered, 200+ Israeli hostages in Hamas hands, thousands of Palestinians dead in Gaza after Israeli counterstrikes, and settler violence against innocent Palestinians in the West Bank, there seems to be no end to this conflict. Israelis and Jews around the world are in despair. Palestinians and their supporters around the world see no prospect of peace.
For me, the central lesson of this story is how extremists on both sides have so successfully undermined peace in the region for a century. In the era of Rabin, bloody Hamas attacks against Israeli civilians surged and caused many Israelis to lose faith in the peace process. Meanwhile, the Israeli right relentlessly pressed forward with its messianic insistence on settling the West Bank and failed to denounce violence against innocent Palestinians from some of its members (e.g the Baruch Goldstein massacre) all of which undermined the efforts of pragmatic centrist Israeli leaders. But the ultimate fatal blow came in Rabin’s assassination by a right wing extremist, which would prove to be ever more consequential in the decades following November 4, 1995.
Great read. Really informative. Sadly, timely. Very worth the read for anybody interested in actually learning more about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and not just in engaging with inflammatory rhetoric.
This book tells the gripping tail of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, the political backdrop to his murder, and the political maelstrom that followed his death. With haunting detail, Ephron explains how a young religious Jewish law student at Bar Ilan University would shock the world by killing the Prime Minister of Israel and changing the course of Israeli politics to this day. The book gives much insight into Rabin as a leader and to the Oslo peace process he built with his unlikely partner in peace, Yasser Arafat.
Today, almost 30 years after Rabin’s murder and three weeks after Black Saturday - which will surely be forever a seminal moment in Israel’s history - the tragedy of this tale hit harder than ever. With 1400+ Israelis brutally murdered, 200+ Israeli hostages in Hamas hands, thousands of Palestinians dead in Gaza after Israeli counterstrikes, and settler violence against innocent Palestinians in the West Bank, there seems to be no end to this conflict. Israelis and Jews around the world are in despair. Palestinians and their supporters around the world see no prospect of peace.
For me, the central lesson of this story is how extremists on both sides have so successfully undermined peace in the region for a century. In the era of Rabin, bloody Hamas attacks against Israeli civilians surged and caused many Israelis to lose faith in the peace process. Meanwhile, the Israeli right relentlessly pressed forward with its messianic insistence on settling the West Bank and failed to denounce violence against innocent Palestinians from some of its members (e.g the Baruch Goldstein massacre) all of which undermined the efforts of pragmatic centrist Israeli leaders. But the ultimate fatal blow came in Rabin’s assassination by a right wing extremist, which would prove to be ever more consequential in the decades following November 4, 1995.
Great read. Really informative. Sadly, timely. Very worth the read for anybody interested in actually learning more about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and not just in engaging with inflammatory rhetoric.
March 24, 2016
This book offers an honest look at the strange but rampant thought-process of religious Jews who have established themselves in settlements in the occupied territories. While much of their thinking is alien to me, I can appreciate their fervor and commitment to their principles. Understanding these settlers is key in finding a solution to the problem of establishing peaceful relations between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians in the area.
In the preface, Dan Ephron writes: "Would Rabin have succeeded [in making peace]?" Obstacles must be weighed against the circumstances that favored peacemaking in 1995. "The opponents of compromise had nowhere near the power and influence they hold now. The process itself had not yet been contaminated by sustained waves of violence and settlement expansion. ...That we'll never know how close he would have come is one of the exasperating consequences of the assassination."
Later he writes: "According to Judaism, killing a king is profoundly significant. It affects the entire nation and alters its destiny." Hagai Amir, two years older than his brother, Yigal Amir, the assassin, was also observant and privy to Yigal's plan. Both were living with their parents. Yigal was 25, a law student (undergrad). Hagai, trained as a sniper, studied physics. Their mother called them “The thinker [Yigal] and the tinkerer [Hagai]."
They were 2 of 8 siblings. The Torah portion of the fateful week was Lech L'cha, in which God promises to Abraham the lands that Rabin threatened to give away, in return for an uncertain peace. The assassin saw this confluence as a sign from God.”
“Din rodef” and “Din moser” are Halakhic injunctions permitting the killing of a Jew who allows other Jews to be hunted. To Yigal Amir, Rabin was deserving of execution—according to these laws.
Yigal Amir took to heart the rabbinic injunction, as expressed by his beloved Rav Kook, that Jews must learn to fathom God's will.
The Amir brothers honored Baruch Goldstein, a right-wing extremist, for slaughtering Muslim worshippers in Maarat Hamakhpelah.
Note that the Arabic word, “Intifada,” means “shaking off.”
Ephron details the personal and political rivalry (and enmity) between Rabin & Peres.
Before the final agreement (the Oslo Accords), there was much to do to navigate the handshake between Rabin and Arafat. Rabin let Bill Clinton know that Rabin would not agree to kissing, a showy gesture that Arafat enjoyed.
The conquests of the six day war had inspired a kind of rapture even among members of the Labor Party, whose non-religionists were infected by a secular version of the messianism that inspired religious Israelis.
Rabin called the settlers "a cancer in the body of Israeli democracy."
Nachshon Wachsman, the kidnapped son of American-born Esther Wachsman, was one of six sons. Vigils were held in hopes of his release. Ultimately, however, he was murdered.
The two decades of rivalry and personal animosity between Rabin & Peres began to thaw after they were awarded the Nobel Prize.
Shabak was the official Israeli government agency that recruited informants. Shabak began as a military arm to defend against Palestinian attacks. At a certain point, it began defending against Jewish extremists. Shabak knew about Amir, but only about his rabble rousing, his plan for a militia of Jewish extremists, not about his plans to kill Rabin. Avishai Raviv (code-name: "Champagne," because he bubbled with energy) was the prime informant. Lived in a West Bank settlement. Married a religious woman.
Religious Jews compared Rabin to the Vichy government, collaborators with Hitler, and to the Nazi regime itself. Protests included shouts of "Rabin is a murderer!" "Rabin is a Traitor!"
Netanyahu stuck to calling Rabin a liar. (Sharon had been called a murderer for his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.)
Rabin himself presented one of the biggest obstacles to protecting Rabin. He hated the armored Cadillac. He wouldn't wear a bullet-proof vest.
P147. “Yesha council” consisted of rabbis who issued new rulings. These included calling on soldiers to refuse to evacuate settlements, which was a direct challenge to Israel's government sovereignty. Radical, desperate settlers saw Rabin's policies as sacrilege against God. Hezi Kalo, in charge of protecting against Jewish extremists, understood that Rabin was in grave danger. But Raviv thought Amir was just a blowhard and underestimated Amir’s intent. Yet Amir had said the Vidui prayer, which is recited when someone prepares to die. Some knew. Some had suspicions. But skepticism prevailed.
What Shabak knew: a short, Yemeni guy with curly hair planned to murder the Prime Minister. They knew that This guy had already said the Vidui.
Shabak's protection unit, headed by Carmi Gillon, met with Rabin's resistance. Since both Gillon and Rabin were socially awkward, impatient with pretention and personally forthright, they actually got along well on a personal level.. At a gathering in Caesaria, at the home of president Ezer Weizman, Gillon found Rabin alone in a back room watching a soccer match on tv. They watched the rest of the game together.
In the preface, Dan Ephron writes: "Would Rabin have succeeded [in making peace]?" Obstacles must be weighed against the circumstances that favored peacemaking in 1995. "The opponents of compromise had nowhere near the power and influence they hold now. The process itself had not yet been contaminated by sustained waves of violence and settlement expansion. ...That we'll never know how close he would have come is one of the exasperating consequences of the assassination."
Later he writes: "According to Judaism, killing a king is profoundly significant. It affects the entire nation and alters its destiny." Hagai Amir, two years older than his brother, Yigal Amir, the assassin, was also observant and privy to Yigal's plan. Both were living with their parents. Yigal was 25, a law student (undergrad). Hagai, trained as a sniper, studied physics. Their mother called them “The thinker [Yigal] and the tinkerer [Hagai]."
They were 2 of 8 siblings. The Torah portion of the fateful week was Lech L'cha, in which God promises to Abraham the lands that Rabin threatened to give away, in return for an uncertain peace. The assassin saw this confluence as a sign from God.”
“Din rodef” and “Din moser” are Halakhic injunctions permitting the killing of a Jew who allows other Jews to be hunted. To Yigal Amir, Rabin was deserving of execution—according to these laws.
Yigal Amir took to heart the rabbinic injunction, as expressed by his beloved Rav Kook, that Jews must learn to fathom God's will.
The Amir brothers honored Baruch Goldstein, a right-wing extremist, for slaughtering Muslim worshippers in Maarat Hamakhpelah.
Note that the Arabic word, “Intifada,” means “shaking off.”
Ephron details the personal and political rivalry (and enmity) between Rabin & Peres.
Before the final agreement (the Oslo Accords), there was much to do to navigate the handshake between Rabin and Arafat. Rabin let Bill Clinton know that Rabin would not agree to kissing, a showy gesture that Arafat enjoyed.
The conquests of the six day war had inspired a kind of rapture even among members of the Labor Party, whose non-religionists were infected by a secular version of the messianism that inspired religious Israelis.
Rabin called the settlers "a cancer in the body of Israeli democracy."
Nachshon Wachsman, the kidnapped son of American-born Esther Wachsman, was one of six sons. Vigils were held in hopes of his release. Ultimately, however, he was murdered.
The two decades of rivalry and personal animosity between Rabin & Peres began to thaw after they were awarded the Nobel Prize.
Shabak was the official Israeli government agency that recruited informants. Shabak began as a military arm to defend against Palestinian attacks. At a certain point, it began defending against Jewish extremists. Shabak knew about Amir, but only about his rabble rousing, his plan for a militia of Jewish extremists, not about his plans to kill Rabin. Avishai Raviv (code-name: "Champagne," because he bubbled with energy) was the prime informant. Lived in a West Bank settlement. Married a religious woman.
Religious Jews compared Rabin to the Vichy government, collaborators with Hitler, and to the Nazi regime itself. Protests included shouts of "Rabin is a murderer!" "Rabin is a Traitor!"
Netanyahu stuck to calling Rabin a liar. (Sharon had been called a murderer for his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.)
Rabin himself presented one of the biggest obstacles to protecting Rabin. He hated the armored Cadillac. He wouldn't wear a bullet-proof vest.
P147. “Yesha council” consisted of rabbis who issued new rulings. These included calling on soldiers to refuse to evacuate settlements, which was a direct challenge to Israel's government sovereignty. Radical, desperate settlers saw Rabin's policies as sacrilege against God. Hezi Kalo, in charge of protecting against Jewish extremists, understood that Rabin was in grave danger. But Raviv thought Amir was just a blowhard and underestimated Amir’s intent. Yet Amir had said the Vidui prayer, which is recited when someone prepares to die. Some knew. Some had suspicions. But skepticism prevailed.
What Shabak knew: a short, Yemeni guy with curly hair planned to murder the Prime Minister. They knew that This guy had already said the Vidui.
Shabak's protection unit, headed by Carmi Gillon, met with Rabin's resistance. Since both Gillon and Rabin were socially awkward, impatient with pretention and personally forthright, they actually got along well on a personal level.. At a gathering in Caesaria, at the home of president Ezer Weizman, Gillon found Rabin alone in a back room watching a soccer match on tv. They watched the rest of the game together.
December 27, 2017
An informative account of the events surrounding the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, by Newsweek’s former Jerusalem Bureau Chief Dan Ephron. Set during the era of Israel-Palestine peace talks during the Clinton presidency, Ephron retraces the steps of Yigal Amir, an ultra orthodox Israeli Jew who shot Rabin at a Tel Aviv peace rally. Ephron gives a glimpse into the mindset of Amir as representative of those on the Israeli far right, who viewed Rabin as a traitor for conceding land to the Palestinians. He also offers some context for the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu and the seeming diminishment of hope or desire among more and more Israelis and Palestinians for a two-state solution, in the aftermath of Rabin’s assassination.
This is not a comprehensive history nor is it intended to be, but it is an excellent book for readers who are looking to inform themselves on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one book at a time.
This is not a comprehensive history nor is it intended to be, but it is an excellent book for readers who are looking to inform themselves on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one book at a time.
November 26, 2018
It's only towards the end of the book that I realized what a great "factual reporting" book this was- Ephron somehow manages to portray this tumultuous period without passing any kind of judgement.
This book is an excellent guide to understanding how rhetoric leads to extremism leads to political violence leads to the complete destruction of ideals.
I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars. I took away 1 star because I felt it could've spent some more time on the aftermath of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. But the narration leading to the assassination makes you feel as if you were there.
This book is an excellent guide to understanding how rhetoric leads to extremism leads to political violence leads to the complete destruction of ideals.
I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars. I took away 1 star because I felt it could've spent some more time on the aftermath of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. But the narration leading to the assassination makes you feel as if you were there.
December 16, 2018
This depressed me even more than I thought it would. It's a bit like watching "The Handmaid's Tale" (moreso than it is like reading the book, imho), with all of these flashback focuses on what was obviously going wrong, pre-dystopia, and what people missed. And at the end of the day, it certainly seems to disprove the old adage that love is stronger than hate.
The book largely follows Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and his assassin, Yigal Amir, through the two years before the former's death. Rabin's sections were certainly more political than they were personal, and I suppose one quibble I might have with the book is that I didn't necessarily get a nuanced understanding of him as a person. Ridiculously petty kerfluffle with Shimon Peres notwithstanding (and they say women are too emotional for politics.) I suppose one might say that Yigal Amir's profile wasn't too personal, either, or perhaps both men defined themselves by grandiosity--politics and religious extremism. But I didn't feel the need to know Amir anymore than Ephron portrayed him on the page. I got it--he was a simple man with a simple worldview which led to an inevitable conclusion. (Though apparently after twenty years in prison, he's also trying to have it both ways--to be the "savior," but also buy into conspiracy theories that it wasn't him.)
Rabin's life was much more complicated, in how he tried to juggle creating peaceful and economic opportunities with Palestinians and other neighbors, vs the retaliation of violence that sprung up from both sides of the conflict. The Second Intifada brought about a wave of terrorist attacks, which killed dozens of Israeli citizens shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords. As people's lives are threatened, they feel less inclined to support peace with their tormentors. On the opposite side of the coin, Ephron documented systematic abuses against Palestinians, with mass curfews (not enacted in the settlements), police custody abuses and a lack of protection from settler violence.
Politically the settler movement was growing at this time, and fear of greater consequences kept the government from reigning them in, despite the ultimate aims of the Oslo Accords and despite Rabin's general (misguided) dismissal of the movement. He ultimately planned to remove them in one fell swoop, though it seems impractical in hindsight (then again, Ariel Sharon did manage it a decade later in Gaza.) Israeli/Palestinian politics did feel like some sort of old western movie, with antagonists facing each other at high noon and the fate of everything resting on one shot. Yigal Amir's shots, which effectively ended the peace process. Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Palestinians at prayer, or the kidnapping, attempted ransom and murder of Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman also played singular roles. So too did Shimon Peres's ultimately peace-damaging political decisions in the wake of Rabin's murder.
Twenty years later, Israel has shifted decidedly rightward and peace seems a far-off dream. It's easy to feel dispirited by this book, as Rabin's daughter, Dalia, does when she thinks about her fellow citizens and the entrenched politics of the settler movement: "She has come to view the last twenty years as the story of a power shift from the likes of her father--secular, pragmatic, and moderate--to the advocates of Alon Shvut (and the settlement movement generally): ethnically chauvinist, uncompromising, often messianic. That the assassination would mark the birth of this new Israel is nothing short of horrifying to her." As I read this book, Palestinians attacked and killed several Israelis in the West Bank, including an infant whose birth was induced prematurely after his mother was shot. And yet, Ephron writes in his conclusion, the general security in Israel (the heavily patrolled territories, along with infringing on Palestinian civil rights, have also cut back on mass casualties of Israelis), means that the populace is less likely to view the peace process as important. This book proves that it comes at a high cost.
I largely dismissed Amir earlier, though as I read the book I was discomfited, as a co-religionist, by how easy it would be to buy into his worldview. I suppose that's the danger of all ethnic and religious violent resistance. Peace, empathy and compromise are a lot more difficult to navigate than is victimhood and self-righteousness. But Ephron navigated them all well in his re-telling, with a journalist's direct prose style but also attention to the variety of players on the field during this intense time in Israeli and Palestinian history. Perhaps--just because I'm desperate to come away with something positive (I started listening to this podcast out of sheer desperation as I finished the book: http://www.hadassah.org/multi-media/p...) ultimately, Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat had a better working relationship than I would have thought.
The book largely follows Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and his assassin, Yigal Amir, through the two years before the former's death. Rabin's sections were certainly more political than they were personal, and I suppose one quibble I might have with the book is that I didn't necessarily get a nuanced understanding of him as a person. Ridiculously petty kerfluffle with Shimon Peres notwithstanding (and they say women are too emotional for politics.) I suppose one might say that Yigal Amir's profile wasn't too personal, either, or perhaps both men defined themselves by grandiosity--politics and religious extremism. But I didn't feel the need to know Amir anymore than Ephron portrayed him on the page. I got it--he was a simple man with a simple worldview which led to an inevitable conclusion. (Though apparently after twenty years in prison, he's also trying to have it both ways--to be the "savior," but also buy into conspiracy theories that it wasn't him.)
Rabin's life was much more complicated, in how he tried to juggle creating peaceful and economic opportunities with Palestinians and other neighbors, vs the retaliation of violence that sprung up from both sides of the conflict. The Second Intifada brought about a wave of terrorist attacks, which killed dozens of Israeli citizens shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords. As people's lives are threatened, they feel less inclined to support peace with their tormentors. On the opposite side of the coin, Ephron documented systematic abuses against Palestinians, with mass curfews (not enacted in the settlements), police custody abuses and a lack of protection from settler violence.
Politically the settler movement was growing at this time, and fear of greater consequences kept the government from reigning them in, despite the ultimate aims of the Oslo Accords and despite Rabin's general (misguided) dismissal of the movement. He ultimately planned to remove them in one fell swoop, though it seems impractical in hindsight (then again, Ariel Sharon did manage it a decade later in Gaza.) Israeli/Palestinian politics did feel like some sort of old western movie, with antagonists facing each other at high noon and the fate of everything resting on one shot. Yigal Amir's shots, which effectively ended the peace process. Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Palestinians at prayer, or the kidnapping, attempted ransom and murder of Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman also played singular roles. So too did Shimon Peres's ultimately peace-damaging political decisions in the wake of Rabin's murder.
Twenty years later, Israel has shifted decidedly rightward and peace seems a far-off dream. It's easy to feel dispirited by this book, as Rabin's daughter, Dalia, does when she thinks about her fellow citizens and the entrenched politics of the settler movement: "She has come to view the last twenty years as the story of a power shift from the likes of her father--secular, pragmatic, and moderate--to the advocates of Alon Shvut (and the settlement movement generally): ethnically chauvinist, uncompromising, often messianic. That the assassination would mark the birth of this new Israel is nothing short of horrifying to her." As I read this book, Palestinians attacked and killed several Israelis in the West Bank, including an infant whose birth was induced prematurely after his mother was shot. And yet, Ephron writes in his conclusion, the general security in Israel (the heavily patrolled territories, along with infringing on Palestinian civil rights, have also cut back on mass casualties of Israelis), means that the populace is less likely to view the peace process as important. This book proves that it comes at a high cost.
I largely dismissed Amir earlier, though as I read the book I was discomfited, as a co-religionist, by how easy it would be to buy into his worldview. I suppose that's the danger of all ethnic and religious violent resistance. Peace, empathy and compromise are a lot more difficult to navigate than is victimhood and self-righteousness. But Ephron navigated them all well in his re-telling, with a journalist's direct prose style but also attention to the variety of players on the field during this intense time in Israeli and Palestinian history. Perhaps--just because I'm desperate to come away with something positive (I started listening to this podcast out of sheer desperation as I finished the book: http://www.hadassah.org/multi-media/p...) ultimately, Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat had a better working relationship than I would have thought.
January 16, 2024
As much as I love big, sprawling history books, I also love an author who can find his focus and tell a full story in under 300 pages. Unless you're a professional Israeli political journalist, this is probably the most you need you know about the assassination, and Ephron makes it an engaging yarn, even when you know how terribly it will end from the beginning.
The counterfactual hanging over the whole story is, as Ephron says, "could Rabin have secured a final peace deal?" In some ways, though, the bigger counterfactuals seem to involve Peres and his approach to the immediate aftermath of the assassination. You can tell a very persuasive story where Rabin survives (maybe because he wears a goddamn Kevlar vest like Shin Bet told him to), orders the assassination of Yahya Ayyash and sets off the same vicious Hamas reprisals that occurred when Peres ordered the same, and loses reelection to Netanyahu under the weight of the mounting violence.
But you can also tell a story where Peres calls an election immediately after the assassination, wins in an LBJ-esque landslide (he was ahead in polls by 30 points!), and signs the final status deal that Yossi Beilin and Mahmoud Abbas had already negotiated. In some ways, that's much more plausible than the Rabin-makes-the-deal story. The determining factor, then, is less Yigal Amir's bullets and more Peres having the political instincts of a comatose goat.
A running theme throughout the book is Rabin and Peres' burning hatred for each other, which abates somewhat after they share the Nobel Peace Prize (their medals getting mixed up, and Peres noticing because he has been staring at his prize nonstop, is so funny) but is always there. Somehow this vendetta was a strong enough force that a desire to be more than Rabin's successor led Peres to sabotage his own career and throw the 1996 election to Netanyahu. May I just say: what a putz.
The counterfactual hanging over the whole story is, as Ephron says, "could Rabin have secured a final peace deal?" In some ways, though, the bigger counterfactuals seem to involve Peres and his approach to the immediate aftermath of the assassination. You can tell a very persuasive story where Rabin survives (maybe because he wears a goddamn Kevlar vest like Shin Bet told him to), orders the assassination of Yahya Ayyash and sets off the same vicious Hamas reprisals that occurred when Peres ordered the same, and loses reelection to Netanyahu under the weight of the mounting violence.
But you can also tell a story where Peres calls an election immediately after the assassination, wins in an LBJ-esque landslide (he was ahead in polls by 30 points!), and signs the final status deal that Yossi Beilin and Mahmoud Abbas had already negotiated. In some ways, that's much more plausible than the Rabin-makes-the-deal story. The determining factor, then, is less Yigal Amir's bullets and more Peres having the political instincts of a comatose goat.
A running theme throughout the book is Rabin and Peres' burning hatred for each other, which abates somewhat after they share the Nobel Peace Prize (their medals getting mixed up, and Peres noticing because he has been staring at his prize nonstop, is so funny) but is always there. Somehow this vendetta was a strong enough force that a desire to be more than Rabin's successor led Peres to sabotage his own career and throw the 1996 election to Netanyahu. May I just say: what a putz.
December 2, 2023
A very detailed account of, outside Israel, a very little-known event.
Ephron, an executive editor at Foreign Policy, Newsweek magazine, is well placed to relate this earth-shaking event, the assassination of a sitting Prime Minister.
Israel is a democracy right in the middle of nations that simply want them dead and gone.
Ephron, an executive editor at Foreign Policy, Newsweek magazine, is well placed to relate this earth-shaking event, the assassination of a sitting Prime Minister.
Israel is a democracy right in the middle of nations that simply want them dead and gone.
February 3, 2019
Essential reading if you want a more complete understanding of Israeli history and politics...the implications are deeply unsettling, and you’re left with many vital and troubling questions after you’ve closed it
October 10, 2025
From the back cover:
“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 this novel, Dan Ephron relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the 2 years leading up to the assassination.
“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.
———. ———- ———- ———. ———- ———-
We are now facing negotiations with the same opponents of the Oslo Accords of Rabin and Arafat. Is the peace Rabin died for on the horizon?
Israelis are hoping so.
Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
For me this book is a keeper.
“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 this novel, Dan Ephron relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the 2 years leading up to the assassination.
“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.
———. ———- ———- ———. ———- ———-
We are now facing negotiations with the same opponents of the Oslo Accords of Rabin and Arafat. Is the peace Rabin died for on the horizon?
Israelis are hoping so.
Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
For me this book is a keeper.
September 14, 2024
Читав в оригіналі англійською. Написано складною для мене мовою. Автор - американець, журналіст, що полюбляє вживати рідкі книжні слова. В кожному абзаці знаходив невідомі мені слова чи вирази. Загальне враження — гарне висвітлення історії Ізраїлю в 90-х роках. Замість довгої розповіді про арабо-ізраїльский конфлікт, тут радше детальний переказ подій, що могли поставити крапку війнам на Святій Землі. Дуже багато прізвищ, абревіатур, подій, переплетінь людських життів, релігії та політики. Висновок не втішний: мирний процес між Ізраїлем та палестинцями не тільки був зірваний, але й призвів до ще більшої напруги, взаємної ненависті та терактів. Дізнався багато цікавого про політичну систему Ізраїлю, життя в секторі Газа, Юдеї та Самарії.
September 4, 2024
Incredible journalism. Always reminded of how badly the world could have used Rabin for longer.
April 27, 2022
Our Temple Book Club read this book. It is so well-written; it could be mistaken for a historical novel instead of a gripping story of the man who killed Rabin, of Rabin at the time of the signing of the Olso Accords , of Israel at this time in history when peace was so close and polarization (to be continued)
November 1, 2023
Well the recent issue between Gaza and Israel made me pick up this book to read. The author did a tremendous job in explaining the era of Rabin and the political conditions which brought Netanyahu to power. This book is a good way to start deep dive into understanding the politics of the current issue.
September 13, 2024
This book is a brilliant work of journalism and a MUST READ for anyone who wants to understand the Israel-Palestine crisis. It not only provides us with a plausible thesis that Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin could have ushered in peace between Israel and Palestine, but it also is terrific at presenting just how fragile brokering a peace is. In 1995, Rabin had just signed the Oslo II treaty. He had brokered a peace with King Hussein. After a shaky and volatile start, Rabin had even developed a surprisingly solid relationship with Arafat. With Fatah on the wane and Hamas on the rise and Rabin (Labor, not Likud) in the seat, this was quite possibly the last moment in Israel's history to secure a peace.
And then Rabin was assassinated by a maniac.
Peres followed as Prime Minister. A pale shadow of Rabin. Dude couldn't strike a deal with Syria. Dude couldn't win against Netanyahu (although it was close). And Hamas took the opportunity to strike with a series of bus attacks. And it was all over for peace. Peres, who had won a Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Arafat, would later go on to cozy up to hard-liner Ariel Sharon, causing some of the Oslo judges to deeply regret giving this third-rate politico the Prize.
Dan Ephron covers all this with an impressively and assiduously objective eye, which is NOT easy to do for a subject that is this loaded.
It turns out that Yigal Amir (Rabin's assassin) is really not all that different from any other unhinged killer. He selectively read the Torah to justify assassinating Rabin in the eyes of god. He frequently boasted about it to his classmates. And while Shabak and the police came very close to connecting the dots as right-wing Zionists howled for Rabin's blood after Oslo, they couldn't catch him. And they couldn't stop this lone gunman.
Also, fuck Netanyahu for inflaming violent right-wing rhetoric and making an incredibly delicate situation even worse, paving the way for Amir to fire his Beretta. I cannot wait to write that genocidal scumbag's obituary.
And if this weren't enough, Ephron ALSO has an epilogue in which he examines the third hole in Rabin's shirt and puts an end to all the conspiracy theories out there. The hole wasn't caused by a bullet, according to a ballistics expert. But we still don't know what caused it. So even more mysteries!
There's also a great This American Life episode with Ephron here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/570/...
And then Rabin was assassinated by a maniac.
Peres followed as Prime Minister. A pale shadow of Rabin. Dude couldn't strike a deal with Syria. Dude couldn't win against Netanyahu (although it was close). And Hamas took the opportunity to strike with a series of bus attacks. And it was all over for peace. Peres, who had won a Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Arafat, would later go on to cozy up to hard-liner Ariel Sharon, causing some of the Oslo judges to deeply regret giving this third-rate politico the Prize.
Dan Ephron covers all this with an impressively and assiduously objective eye, which is NOT easy to do for a subject that is this loaded.
It turns out that Yigal Amir (Rabin's assassin) is really not all that different from any other unhinged killer. He selectively read the Torah to justify assassinating Rabin in the eyes of god. He frequently boasted about it to his classmates. And while Shabak and the police came very close to connecting the dots as right-wing Zionists howled for Rabin's blood after Oslo, they couldn't catch him. And they couldn't stop this lone gunman.
Also, fuck Netanyahu for inflaming violent right-wing rhetoric and making an incredibly delicate situation even worse, paving the way for Amir to fire his Beretta. I cannot wait to write that genocidal scumbag's obituary.
And if this weren't enough, Ephron ALSO has an epilogue in which he examines the third hole in Rabin's shirt and puts an end to all the conspiracy theories out there. The hole wasn't caused by a bullet, according to a ballistics expert. But we still don't know what caused it. So even more mysteries!
There's also a great This American Life episode with Ephron here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/570/...
January 15, 2016
The unthinkable happened when Yitzhak Rabin, then Prime minister of Israel was assassinated in 1995 by a 25 year old Israeli, Yigal Amir. The book follows the lives of Rabin and his assassin from September 1993 to the day of assassination.
Rabin, a secular soldier who went on to rise to high ranks in Israel's military and who was at the forefront of Israel's victory in 1967 six-day arab-israeli war, comes to see that Israel has to move on from the dispute with Palestinians for the nation to progress. The peace talks with Yasser Arafat, leading the rebelling PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) for independence in West bank and Gaza strip under Israeli control, aims to put the Israeli-Palestine dispute to rest. The right-wing extremist Israelis however, condemn the peace agreement as they believe the disputed land was given to Jews by god as their birthright. The peace agreement for which Arafat and Rabin were awarded nobel peace prize also threatened the authority of the rabbis who do not actively discourage the idea that killing Rabin is the only way for Jews to retain their land of birthright and Amir becomes increasingly convinced the act is nothing but justified and holy.
Dan ephron puts forward the events as nothing short of a thriller and a gripping political drama.
The sad truth that this is no fictional drama is disheartening. While the assassination of a political leader presents a chance to accelerate their agenda, Peres who succeeds Rabin (also the shared recipient of nobel peace prize with Arafat and Rabin) makes fateful political decisions and fails to mobilise the implementation of the peace agreement, losing the election to Benjamin Netanyahu. The peace agreement is dissolved! We will never know how the middle east political dynamic could have changed if Rabin had been successful in his vision, but the 'what-if' is a lingering question that will always remain open.
Rabin, a secular soldier who went on to rise to high ranks in Israel's military and who was at the forefront of Israel's victory in 1967 six-day arab-israeli war, comes to see that Israel has to move on from the dispute with Palestinians for the nation to progress. The peace talks with Yasser Arafat, leading the rebelling PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) for independence in West bank and Gaza strip under Israeli control, aims to put the Israeli-Palestine dispute to rest. The right-wing extremist Israelis however, condemn the peace agreement as they believe the disputed land was given to Jews by god as their birthright. The peace agreement for which Arafat and Rabin were awarded nobel peace prize also threatened the authority of the rabbis who do not actively discourage the idea that killing Rabin is the only way for Jews to retain their land of birthright and Amir becomes increasingly convinced the act is nothing but justified and holy.
Dan ephron puts forward the events as nothing short of a thriller and a gripping political drama.
The sad truth that this is no fictional drama is disheartening. While the assassination of a political leader presents a chance to accelerate their agenda, Peres who succeeds Rabin (also the shared recipient of nobel peace prize with Arafat and Rabin) makes fateful political decisions and fails to mobilise the implementation of the peace agreement, losing the election to Benjamin Netanyahu. The peace agreement is dissolved! We will never know how the middle east political dynamic could have changed if Rabin had been successful in his vision, but the 'what-if' is a lingering question that will always remain open.
April 4, 2016
With the current stability/instability paradigm that makes up the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, it's easy to think that it will never be resolved. Yet between 1993 and 1995, there was a brief, shining moment when it seemed that not only would Israel make peace with Palestine, but that it would make peace with all of its Arab neighbors and that it was ultimately inevitable. But three bullets from an assassin's handgun in November 1995 changed all of that. What happened? In this intriguing book, Mr. Ephron weaves two tales: one of the peace process, led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, that was gaining ground and looked to be on the road to success and a taut thriller about a religious zealot who stalked Rabin for nearly two years intent upon killing him. From start to finish, this book is nerve-wracking and tragic in its consequences. I will say that the assassination came a little earlier than expected, but this book is just as much about the death of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as well as the death of Rabin. And the epilogue includes one last mystery that will keep you turning the pages to the end. For anyone interested in modern Israel, I highly recommend this book.
May 24, 2018
Many books interest or even move me, but this book had me saying, "Wow" aloud when I read the last sentence. Dan Ephron captures the complex story of Rabin's assassination, tying it to his political policies, but in the process of doing that he shows how Rabin's assassination changed the course of Israel's history, closing the metaphorical door to peace, cooperation and acceptances of Palestinians. Often, Ephron introduced points that end up haunting readers through the entire book. One was the newly appointed head of security trying to convince Rabin to wear a bullet-proof vest. Enraged, Rabin states emphatically he would never do such a thing in his own country. Killing a King examines religious fanaticism and the part it played in Rabin's assassination. Chilling accounts of Israel's perception of the Amir brothers, who plotted Rabin's assassination brings up many questions in readers' minds. Ephron also does an admirable job of dealing with conspiracy theories in general and in the case of Rabin's assassination. This is one of the best books I have read in the past year -- both for content and style.
November 29, 2025
“Peace must be and peace will be Prime Minister Rabin’s lasting legacy.” — President Bill Clinton, Nov. 5, 1995
Just over two years after participating in a once unimaginable scene, Yitzhak Rabin was the victim of the unthinkable – at least among the majority of Israelis who were unaware of the sources of the threats against his life. In Sept. 1993, Rabin, the venerated general-turned-introvert politician, shook hands with his arch enemy Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian national movement, on a sun-splashed White House lawn. They signed the Oslo Accords, triggering a peace process that aimed at ending decades of bloodshed. Then, in Nov. 1995, a 25-year-old Jewish religious fanatic named Yigal Amir gunned down Rabin in cold blood as the prime minister left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Amazingly, Amir fired three shots at close range without the security detail ever returning fire. An Israeli citizen, not a Palestinian jihadist, had killed the country’s leader because the leader sought peace.
So, after learning of his friend’s martyrdom, President Clinton vowed to continue the work that had begun in earnest two years earlier. His words seem naive in retrospect. Peace will be Rabin’s lasting legacy. There had already been dire signs that the peace process would falter. Almost immediately after the signing of the Oslo Accords, spoilers on both sides started shooting, stabbing, bombing, and murdering innocent people. The Israeli far right fulminated at any negotiations with the hated PLO, employing violent rhetoric to undermine Rabin’s popularity. He wasn’t simply wrong. He was a traitor. Some fanatics compared him to the Nazis because, by withdrawing Israeli forces from Palestinian territory, Rabin was endangering the lives of Jews — so the argument went.
Still, in Sept. 1995, Rabin and Arafat met once more to sign Oslo II, establishing the Palestinian Authority to oversee Gaza and parts of the West Bank. It was supposed to be a major step toward Palestinian self-rule, if not an independent state. The Knesset voted 61-59 to approve Oslo II the following month, as representatives of the country’s Arab minority provided the decisive votes. This achievement took place amid a combustible atmosphere, as far-right demonstrators marched on the parliament, according to Dan Ephron in his must-read book, Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel.
As the mob swelled, “Menachem Damti, who served as Rabin’s alternate driver, happened to be making his way to the Knesset” in an armored Cadillac used to transport the prime minister. “A block from the building, protesters swarmed the car, rocking it back and forth, climbing the hood and pounding on the roof… one of the protesters managed to rip the hood ornament from the Cadillac. A nineteen-year-old Kach activist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, held up the ornament during a television interview later and made what could only be interpreted as a death threat. ‘This is the ornament. People managed to remove the ornament from the car. And just as we got to the ornament, we can get to Rabin,’ he said.” (Ephron, Killing a King, p. 164)
Today, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a nationalist-religious maniac, is Israel’s national security minister. The name of his party, Otzma Yehudit, translates to ‘Jewish Power’ or ‘Jewish Strength.’ Ben-Gvir is known for having a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, the zealot who massacred 29 Muslims in the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. He subscribes to the same kinds of ideas that inspired Yigal Amir to murder Rabin. From our vantage thirty years later, we can say that Amir won. There is no peace. A truly independent Palestinian state appears unattainable.
https://historyasithappens.libsyn.com...
In today’s episode of History As It Happens, Dan Ephron, the executive editor of Foreign Policy, says Rabin is mostly forgotten now. “I don’t know that had Rabin survived, the situation would have developed into a full-blown peace agreement. It’s hard to know, and this is what we contend with when we try to understand historical moments. I am quite sure, and it has now been thirty years, that in all the years since, there hasn’t been a moment where Israelis and Palestinians were closer than they were at the time. I don’t think there have been Israeli and Palestinian leaders who had the stature to do it since then, as Rabin and Arafat did,” Ephron says. In the early 1990s, the settlement movement, which Rabin accurately described as a cancer in Israeli democracy, possessed a fraction of its current size and political clout. Even so, as Ephron discussed in the podcast, Rabin had to tread very cautiously when debating whether to forcefully evacuate settlers to advance the Oslo process.
“Assassinations aren’t successful even when the target is killed, because they tend to create a backlash against the assassin. They tend to create support for the person who was killed. That didn’t happen with Rabin, at least not a lasting ‘rallying around’ the peace process and around Rabin’s ideas. It happened for a few months, but then Netanyahu was elected and the country shifted. It’s been a gradual shift over thirty years, and so I think of the Rabin assassination in historical terms… as one of the most successful ones.”
As for Amir, he remains imprisoned, as unrepentant now as he was in the moments after he murdered his prime minister. Amir believed his god authorized him to pull the trigger to save the Jewish people from making peace with their neighbors.
Also discussed in the podcast with Dan Ephron, who as a Reuters journalist covered the 1995 peace rally where the assassination took place: Rabin’s background as soldier, general, and then Israel’s enforcer during the First Intifada; his initial doubts about making peace with Arafat; Yigal Amir’s ideas and ideology; failures of Israeli intelligence; incendiary climate within Israel after Oslo; Netanyahu’s role in stoking incitement; role of rabbis who despised Rabin; and much else.
Originally published here https://martindicaro.substack.com/p/t...
Just over two years after participating in a once unimaginable scene, Yitzhak Rabin was the victim of the unthinkable – at least among the majority of Israelis who were unaware of the sources of the threats against his life. In Sept. 1993, Rabin, the venerated general-turned-introvert politician, shook hands with his arch enemy Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian national movement, on a sun-splashed White House lawn. They signed the Oslo Accords, triggering a peace process that aimed at ending decades of bloodshed. Then, in Nov. 1995, a 25-year-old Jewish religious fanatic named Yigal Amir gunned down Rabin in cold blood as the prime minister left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Amazingly, Amir fired three shots at close range without the security detail ever returning fire. An Israeli citizen, not a Palestinian jihadist, had killed the country’s leader because the leader sought peace.
So, after learning of his friend’s martyrdom, President Clinton vowed to continue the work that had begun in earnest two years earlier. His words seem naive in retrospect. Peace will be Rabin’s lasting legacy. There had already been dire signs that the peace process would falter. Almost immediately after the signing of the Oslo Accords, spoilers on both sides started shooting, stabbing, bombing, and murdering innocent people. The Israeli far right fulminated at any negotiations with the hated PLO, employing violent rhetoric to undermine Rabin’s popularity. He wasn’t simply wrong. He was a traitor. Some fanatics compared him to the Nazis because, by withdrawing Israeli forces from Palestinian territory, Rabin was endangering the lives of Jews — so the argument went.
Still, in Sept. 1995, Rabin and Arafat met once more to sign Oslo II, establishing the Palestinian Authority to oversee Gaza and parts of the West Bank. It was supposed to be a major step toward Palestinian self-rule, if not an independent state. The Knesset voted 61-59 to approve Oslo II the following month, as representatives of the country’s Arab minority provided the decisive votes. This achievement took place amid a combustible atmosphere, as far-right demonstrators marched on the parliament, according to Dan Ephron in his must-read book, Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel.
As the mob swelled, “Menachem Damti, who served as Rabin’s alternate driver, happened to be making his way to the Knesset” in an armored Cadillac used to transport the prime minister. “A block from the building, protesters swarmed the car, rocking it back and forth, climbing the hood and pounding on the roof… one of the protesters managed to rip the hood ornament from the Cadillac. A nineteen-year-old Kach activist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, held up the ornament during a television interview later and made what could only be interpreted as a death threat. ‘This is the ornament. People managed to remove the ornament from the car. And just as we got to the ornament, we can get to Rabin,’ he said.” (Ephron, Killing a King, p. 164)
Today, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a nationalist-religious maniac, is Israel’s national security minister. The name of his party, Otzma Yehudit, translates to ‘Jewish Power’ or ‘Jewish Strength.’ Ben-Gvir is known for having a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, the zealot who massacred 29 Muslims in the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. He subscribes to the same kinds of ideas that inspired Yigal Amir to murder Rabin. From our vantage thirty years later, we can say that Amir won. There is no peace. A truly independent Palestinian state appears unattainable.
https://historyasithappens.libsyn.com...
In today’s episode of History As It Happens, Dan Ephron, the executive editor of Foreign Policy, says Rabin is mostly forgotten now. “I don’t know that had Rabin survived, the situation would have developed into a full-blown peace agreement. It’s hard to know, and this is what we contend with when we try to understand historical moments. I am quite sure, and it has now been thirty years, that in all the years since, there hasn’t been a moment where Israelis and Palestinians were closer than they were at the time. I don’t think there have been Israeli and Palestinian leaders who had the stature to do it since then, as Rabin and Arafat did,” Ephron says. In the early 1990s, the settlement movement, which Rabin accurately described as a cancer in Israeli democracy, possessed a fraction of its current size and political clout. Even so, as Ephron discussed in the podcast, Rabin had to tread very cautiously when debating whether to forcefully evacuate settlers to advance the Oslo process.
“Assassinations aren’t successful even when the target is killed, because they tend to create a backlash against the assassin. They tend to create support for the person who was killed. That didn’t happen with Rabin, at least not a lasting ‘rallying around’ the peace process and around Rabin’s ideas. It happened for a few months, but then Netanyahu was elected and the country shifted. It’s been a gradual shift over thirty years, and so I think of the Rabin assassination in historical terms… as one of the most successful ones.”
As for Amir, he remains imprisoned, as unrepentant now as he was in the moments after he murdered his prime minister. Amir believed his god authorized him to pull the trigger to save the Jewish people from making peace with their neighbors.
Also discussed in the podcast with Dan Ephron, who as a Reuters journalist covered the 1995 peace rally where the assassination took place: Rabin’s background as soldier, general, and then Israel’s enforcer during the First Intifada; his initial doubts about making peace with Arafat; Yigal Amir’s ideas and ideology; failures of Israeli intelligence; incendiary climate within Israel after Oslo; Netanyahu’s role in stoking incitement; role of rabbis who despised Rabin; and much else.
Originally published here https://martindicaro.substack.com/p/t...
December 22, 2015
A look at how one man changed a nation for the worst
It's hard to imagine what the Middle East would be like had Yigal Amir not succeeded with his plot to kill Yitzhak Rabin (sorry, spoilers!). Would peace exist between Israel and Palestine? Would it have inevitably broken down as it seems to have done? These are questions the world would love to know.
This book is a fantastic look at the polarizing state of Israeli society at the time of Rabin's assassination, at how two brother's became radicalized and how an entire section of the Israeli political spectrum could incite such hatred against Rabin. An incredibly detailed examination of the months before and after the shot heard around the Middle East and an expose of the criminal negligence of Shabak and their failures to protect their leader.
It's hard to imagine what the Middle East would be like had Yigal Amir not succeeded with his plot to kill Yitzhak Rabin (sorry, spoilers!). Would peace exist between Israel and Palestine? Would it have inevitably broken down as it seems to have done? These are questions the world would love to know.
This book is a fantastic look at the polarizing state of Israeli society at the time of Rabin's assassination, at how two brother's became radicalized and how an entire section of the Israeli political spectrum could incite such hatred against Rabin. An incredibly detailed examination of the months before and after the shot heard around the Middle East and an expose of the criminal negligence of Shabak and their failures to protect their leader.
November 8, 2024
Every history book is ‘his-story’ that is, an account of events filtered through the eyes of a particular author with a subjective outlook. Every story can usually be told from more than one perspective. Ephron’s story – the account of events before, during and after Rabin’s murder – is told through the filter of someone who seems to have split Israel into the ‘wonderful pragmatists in favor of peace’ and the ‘evil settlers and messianic who are almost all fanatics’. There is absolutely no justification for Rabin’s murder, but a full exploration of the events and atmosphere that led to this heinous crime requires a nuanced approach to Israeli society, rather than the dichotomy between ‘good and evil’ presented in Ephron’s book.
To give some context to my reaction, consider the two assassination attempts made at Donald Trump this year. Granted, I don’t think we know as much about the assassins and their motives as we did about Yigal Amir, but I don’t see anyone in the mainstream media trying to push a narrative that the Democratic party created an atmosphere where it because ok to get rid of Trump ‘by any means necessary’. At most, there are questions about the far left.
Here are some semi-random examples of where I felt the story could’ve been told differently:
Ephron describes Bar-Ilan university as a natural breeding ground for fanatics. As someone who had a first-hand experience Israel universities in the 90s , I see things differently: the ‘wonderful pragmatists’ at some of the main universities outside of Bar-Ilan often turned a cold shoulder to religious students and teachers, and this cold shoulder is what pushed religious and/or right--wing students to Bar-Ilan – a campus that was not a right-wing echo chamber, but was certainly more tolerant of a spectrum of political views than a number of other secular universities. Moreover, Bar-Ilan was a patchwork of many different groups , like most universities. It was certainly home to some fanatic right-wing groups, but it was also home to an interfaith dialogue group that regularly met with students in Ramallah. It ran the whole gamut. I therefore see Ephron’s description as a truth but certainly not the whole truth – not enough to provide an understanding of the atmosphere in Israel or in Bar-Ilan that preceded Rabin’s murder. That is, Ephron conflates one small radical fringe group in Bar-Ilan with general pollical opposition to Rabin’s decisions – two very different things.
Here’s another small example - just a line in the book , but very telling about how Ephron sees Israeli society: Ephron describes Yom Kippur in Israel as a day with a ‘virtual ban on motorized travel’ that forces secular Jews to get on bikes. This framing makes it seems like a day of religious coercion rather than a day where secular and religious Jews have found a way to respect each other. It’s very easy to pit secular and religious Jews against each other against the backdrop of Rabin’s murder but the reality of Israel has generally been much more complex. Israel encompasses a spectrum of religious practices and only fanatics on either side see themselves ‘coerced’. To be sure, is definitely tension in Israeli society around ‘the big questions’ and there are boiling points that push people to extremes, but society is as polarized as Ephron presented it. There are times when the extremes in society get more room on stage -it was true in the mid-nineties and it is true now too, but it doesn’t reflect on Israeli society as a whole more than any other Western society (and these days there seem to be ‘extreme rights’ and ‘extreme lefts’ in just about every Western democracy).
Early in his book, when describing Hebron, Ephron concedes that there had been a significant Jewish presence in Hebron for centuries prior to the 1929 massacre of Jews and that when the Jews came to Hebron 38 later it was actually a return. Rather, later in his book he calls the people who had returned to Hebron ‘colonizers’ -as is if they happened upon it opportunistically and had not prior to connection to it.
Toward the end of his book, Ephron describes a visit by Dalia Rabin to a girls’ school in the settlement of Alon Shevut. In describing the visit, he focuses on questions asked by just one girl about why Rabin’s Center for Peace sponsors the education of Arab students. Ephron ignores the fact that the school opened its gates to Dalia Rabin, whose political views were not aligned with the settler movement – a clear move by the school in support of dialogue and tolerance. Instead, he focuses on only this one question and on Dalia’s assumption that the question reflects the sentiments of the entire student body. Ephron then uses it as a springboard for highlighting Dalia’s ‘enlightened’ views on settlers: “ There interactions, those and others, would not have been traumatic if Dalia thought the voices represented a small minority in Israel. But she has come to view the last twenty years as the story of a power shift from her father – secular, pragmatic, and moderato – to the advocates of Alon Shvut (and the settlement movement generally) as: ethnically chauvinist, comprising, often messianic”
As a bottom line, I think too much of the accounts of events before and after Rabin’s murder have been filtered through the lenses of an author who has views on Israeli society with which I disagree. Moreover, there’s a lot of truth in the book, but not the whole truth – too much cherry-picking to fit the author’s narrative.
To give some context to my reaction, consider the two assassination attempts made at Donald Trump this year. Granted, I don’t think we know as much about the assassins and their motives as we did about Yigal Amir, but I don’t see anyone in the mainstream media trying to push a narrative that the Democratic party created an atmosphere where it because ok to get rid of Trump ‘by any means necessary’. At most, there are questions about the far left.
Here are some semi-random examples of where I felt the story could’ve been told differently:
Ephron describes Bar-Ilan university as a natural breeding ground for fanatics. As someone who had a first-hand experience Israel universities in the 90s , I see things differently: the ‘wonderful pragmatists’ at some of the main universities outside of Bar-Ilan often turned a cold shoulder to religious students and teachers, and this cold shoulder is what pushed religious and/or right--wing students to Bar-Ilan – a campus that was not a right-wing echo chamber, but was certainly more tolerant of a spectrum of political views than a number of other secular universities. Moreover, Bar-Ilan was a patchwork of many different groups , like most universities. It was certainly home to some fanatic right-wing groups, but it was also home to an interfaith dialogue group that regularly met with students in Ramallah. It ran the whole gamut. I therefore see Ephron’s description as a truth but certainly not the whole truth – not enough to provide an understanding of the atmosphere in Israel or in Bar-Ilan that preceded Rabin’s murder. That is, Ephron conflates one small radical fringe group in Bar-Ilan with general pollical opposition to Rabin’s decisions – two very different things.
Here’s another small example - just a line in the book , but very telling about how Ephron sees Israeli society: Ephron describes Yom Kippur in Israel as a day with a ‘virtual ban on motorized travel’ that forces secular Jews to get on bikes. This framing makes it seems like a day of religious coercion rather than a day where secular and religious Jews have found a way to respect each other. It’s very easy to pit secular and religious Jews against each other against the backdrop of Rabin’s murder but the reality of Israel has generally been much more complex. Israel encompasses a spectrum of religious practices and only fanatics on either side see themselves ‘coerced’. To be sure, is definitely tension in Israeli society around ‘the big questions’ and there are boiling points that push people to extremes, but society is as polarized as Ephron presented it. There are times when the extremes in society get more room on stage -it was true in the mid-nineties and it is true now too, but it doesn’t reflect on Israeli society as a whole more than any other Western society (and these days there seem to be ‘extreme rights’ and ‘extreme lefts’ in just about every Western democracy).
Early in his book, when describing Hebron, Ephron concedes that there had been a significant Jewish presence in Hebron for centuries prior to the 1929 massacre of Jews and that when the Jews came to Hebron 38 later it was actually a return. Rather, later in his book he calls the people who had returned to Hebron ‘colonizers’ -as is if they happened upon it opportunistically and had not prior to connection to it.
Toward the end of his book, Ephron describes a visit by Dalia Rabin to a girls’ school in the settlement of Alon Shevut. In describing the visit, he focuses on questions asked by just one girl about why Rabin’s Center for Peace sponsors the education of Arab students. Ephron ignores the fact that the school opened its gates to Dalia Rabin, whose political views were not aligned with the settler movement – a clear move by the school in support of dialogue and tolerance. Instead, he focuses on only this one question and on Dalia’s assumption that the question reflects the sentiments of the entire student body. Ephron then uses it as a springboard for highlighting Dalia’s ‘enlightened’ views on settlers: “ There interactions, those and others, would not have been traumatic if Dalia thought the voices represented a small minority in Israel. But she has come to view the last twenty years as the story of a power shift from her father – secular, pragmatic, and moderato – to the advocates of Alon Shvut (and the settlement movement generally) as: ethnically chauvinist, comprising, often messianic”
As a bottom line, I think too much of the accounts of events before and after Rabin’s murder have been filtered through the lenses of an author who has views on Israeli society with which I disagree. Moreover, there’s a lot of truth in the book, but not the whole truth – too much cherry-picking to fit the author’s narrative.
December 22, 2017
Great, matter-of-fact rundown of the both the Oslo I and II peace processes, and the one-man plot to kill Rabin. It's a tragedy in so many senses -- Ephron doesn't venerate Rabin, and ably catalogues his many flaws. But he sees how powerfully Rabin's death changed Israeli politics, and likely doomed the peace process for a generation. Essential reading if you want to learn more about this awful period in Israel's history.
March 4, 2016
It was a compelling, if disturbing, read. Ephron is a gifted storyteller, expertly weaving disparate narratives into one whole piece. I highly recommend the This American Life podcast from fall 2015 (around the time of 20th anniversary of the assassination), as well, produced with his wife, Nancy Updike.
January 12, 2017
Very interesting look at Rabin and Amir and the buildup to the assassination. Sometimes though there is a little too much what if. Hindsight is alsways 20/20 and it sometimes gets in the way of just telling the story.
July 28, 2018
A gripping re-telling of the moment an assassin’s bullet cut down the architect of the Oslo Accords, and ended the realistic chance of a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
(And Benjamin Netanyahu comes out of it as a terrible person- who’d have thought?!)
(And Benjamin Netanyahu comes out of it as a terrible person- who’d have thought?!)
March 14, 2016
I thought it could be better. That sounds a bit trite, but maybe a little more background on Rabin would have been nice.
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