Audio Books →Killing a King The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel

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 20th 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 25-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, in November 1995. 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.