Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
A history book that follows the political tensions leading to Rabin’s assassination and the people involved in the murder.
Work Information
It traces how one assassination reshaped Israel’s political landscape.
Dan Ephron’s tightly paced history follows Rabin and his assassin in parallel to show the collapse of the peace process.
Book Information
- Publisher
- W W Norton & Co Inc
- Published
- 2015-10-19
- Pages
- 290 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.51 x 2.79 x 24.38 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780393242096
- ISBN-10
- 0393242099
- Price
- 3434 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Politics & Government/Elections & Political Process/General
The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israels 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 centurys 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 Rabins 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 agencys 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 Rabins and Amirs families, Killing a King is a tightly coiled narrative that reaches an inevitable, shattering conclusion. One cant help but wonder what Israel would look like today had Rabin lived.
An award-winning writer, Dan Ephron has served as the Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek and the Daily Beast and now lives in New York City.
Reviews
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A page turner
An absorbing page turner as Israeli hero Rabin races against time and his assassin. Outstanding detail about the religious right which spawned the Jewish assassin and the many security lapses and missed opportunities to prevent the calamity. Fantastically written and well paced, Ephron deserves a real 'Mazel Tov' for this outstanding achievement.
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Dan Ephron returns to a changed Israel and recounts the events leading to Yitzhak Rabin's murder 20 years ago
'Killing a King' is simultaneously a fascinating and disspiriting account of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by journalist Dan Ephron. Ephron covered that event as a reporter. Going back years later as a bureau chief, he was struck to the degrees by which Israel has changed. The book is fascinating due to the insight and detail Ephron delivers. Its dual timelines - that of Rabin's juxtaposed with Yigal Amir's - is riveting, even when you know the outcome. It's disspiriting because Amir aimed to change history by "killing its king" and evidence suggests he succeeded. Ephron also artfully explores some other veins. First, the degree to which Amir's circle of friends was complicit. He told pretty much everyone he was contemplating taking Rabin's life. Only a few seemed to take him literally. His brother Hagai was an avid co-conspirator. One acquaintance of an acquaintance filed a report with the internal security services, but the details were semi-fictional and purposely oblique. That leads into another avenue that Ephron reports on: the failing of Israel's internal security apparatus. They were, at the time, tooled specifically to focus on the threats posed by Arab extremism & paid only close heed to rising threat of Jewish extremism which -- in Ephron's recounting -- seems there for the world to see. Coupled with the shocking lapse in security the night of Rabin's murder (his killer Amir is left to loiter untouched and unquestioned at Rabin's car), it paints a devastating portrait of institutional ineptitude.
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Five Stars
Outstanding historical account. We lost one of the heroes of Israel.
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Good read for everyone interested in politics of Israel and ...
Fascinating narrative about this period in history I admittedly knew little about. A little slow to get into it (and names of key players confusing sometimes) but once I got about 100 pages in it really was a fast read. I wonder if we can return to a time in Israeli-Palestinian relations where peace seemed just out of reach and actually achieve it this time? Good read for everyone interested in politics of Israel and its neighbors.
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The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Modern history about the murder of the then Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin.