'This book deserves to be read by anyone who wants to understand the complex and dangerous situation that still exists in Israel.' Sunday Times 'A well argued, factual and high;y disturbing investigation into the political cesspool of Israeli extremism and its rationalisation of incitement and cold-blooded murder.' Guardian On 4 November 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a young student, Yigal Amir, an act which abruptly changed the course of Israeli politics. This is the first book to give a full account of the crime and the factors which led inexorably to its execution. Far more than a tale of an assassination, it is a powerful indictment of a society's failure to examine itself honestly and to bring its own worst enemies to justice. In a series of shocking revelations the book ranges beyond Israel to expose the extent of American support - financial and ideological - for the movement that produced Rabin's killer.
In November 1995, after addressing a pro-peace rally in a stadium in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was returning to his car in the parking garage underneath the arena when three shots rang out. Rabin was hit twice, and when surgery to save his life was unsuccessful, Israel's leader had become the latest victim of the Middle East's seemingly never-ending cycle of violence. The assassin, however, was not a Palestinian seeking revenge over Israeli atrocities in the West Bank, but a fellow Israeli, a talmudic scholar named Yigal Amir. The illusion of solidarity in Israel--the small nation staunchly united against its surrounding enemies--was ruptured beyond repair.
As Karpin and Friedman describe the days and months leading up to Rabin's assassination, it becomes apparent that a confrontation between Israel's secular majority and its ultra-orthodox religious zealots had long been imminent. The 1993 signing of the Oslo Agreement, which began the process of returning the West Bank to Palestinian rule, provided the impetus for a violent tear in the fabric of Israeli society. Amir's story is painstakingly reconstructed, from his early initiation in zealotry to his current status in jail--serving a life sentence, but still intensely proud, even boastful, of his deed. The authors also show how the political gap has dramatically widened with the religious right's strengthening of its position in Israel's government since Rabin's killing. This is a chilling and sobering journalistic account that anyone with an interest in Middle East affairs simply must read, and soon. --Tjames Madison
