Killing a King

August 10, 2015
Journalist Ephron, former Jerusalem bureau chief of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, relates the major events leading to the November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in this clearly written, well-paced book. He tracks the activities and thoughts of both Rabin and assassin Yigal Amir, including such important ancillary matters as the rivalry between Rabin and then-foreign-minister Shimon Peres, as well as the increasingly vitriolic antigovernment rhetoric of the Israeli religious right; for example, following the signing and implementation of the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman accused the government of collaborating with the Arabs. Ephron addresses the assassination’s political repercussions and introduces readers to the colorful, somewhat mysterious figure of Avishai Raviv, an agent of the Shin Bet (the Israeli Security Agency) who was also a perpetrator of anti-Palestinian acts of terror. Amir never expressed remorse for the murder, and today “fully a quarter of Israelis” believe his prison sentence should be commuted. In contrast, Dalia Rabin, the late prime minister’s daughter, told Ephron, “I don’t feel I’m part of what most people in this country are willing to do.” Ephron’s book is the best account to date of the Rabin assassination and its aftermath. Illus.

September 15, 2015

Ephron, Newsweek's Jerusalem bureau chief, tells two stories in page-turning detail: the journey of Yitzhak Rabin (1922-95), Israel's first native-born prime minister, on a peace process with Arab neighbors; and how that action incited a young ultra-Orthodox Israeli man to stalk and assassinate Rabin. Rabin's military credentials uniquely qualified him to pragmatically pursue negotiations that involved exchanging disputed land. This possibility inflamed the Israeli right, with the implicit approval of some rabbis and politicians, to the point at which Rabin was considered by some a traitor who deserved to die. Astonishingly, the assassin followed Rabin for two years, staying beneath the radar of the preeminent Israeli security services. With extensive documentation, Ephron re-creates how Rabin sought lasting security for Israel and the killer went after Rabin. The author makes a strong case that one extremist who thought he was obeying a higher law irrevocably changed the course of the Mideast peace process for the worse. VERDICT Fascinating characterizations of real people and intrigue make this book appealing to readers of both fiction and nonfiction thrillers and anyone interested in the history of Israel.--Laurie Unger Skinner, Coll. of Lake Cty., Waukegan, IL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2015
"Israelis had grown tired of peace conferences. And it wasn't at all clear whether the extremists, Arabs or Israelis, were declining or ascending." Those words, describing the situation in the aftermath of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, are just as true 20 years later. In a single moment, the Jewish zealot Yigal Amir derailed the Oslo negotiations and forever altered the destinies of two nations. Former Newsweek Jerusalem bureau chief Ephron argues that the murder presaged the rise of the Israeli hard right, and today, with Rabin's archrival Benjamin Netanyahu serving as prime minister and a quarter of the population supporting clemency for Amir, peace with the Palestinians seems as distant as at any time since 1948. In tense, gripping prose, the author dissects Amir's background, describing him as a bright student who, "in his own view...knew God's word better than most Jews, even most rabbis. And he was a doer-the characteristic that defined Amir more than any other, that distinguished him from his peers in school and in the military." In college, he threw himself into activism but "racked up nothing but failures: the failure to draw millions to the streets; the failure to form a serious militia; and the failure to stop Rabin." The story of Rabin's evolving relationship with Yasser Arafat and Amir's growing militancy unfold in parallel, Amir making repeated attempts to get close to his quarry as he schemed with his brother and harangued his college friends. Amir considered Rabin rodef, a villain who pursues Jews with the intent of killing them, and Ephron makes the solid point that "any honest interpretation of the Talmudic principle he fixated on would have pointed back at him. Amir was the real rodef." In a book with broad appeal, Ephron cogently analyzes the origins and ramifications of a national tragedy he reported on as a young journalist.

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