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Killing a King
- The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
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Killing a King
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Summary
A riveting story about the murder that changed a nation: the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The assassination of 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 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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- James
- 17-04-22
Excellent.
The book itself is very well written and provides great context over the events that unfolded in the early 1990s.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Melanie Preston Lewis
- 19-10-21
Unbiased and refreshing
This detailed and insightful book into Rabin's assassination takes no prisoners. It's incredibly thoughtful and refreshingly unbiased and that is to Mr Ephron's credit. The unequivocal conclusion is that religious extremism in any form is an obscenity. But using religion as an excuse to murder fellow humans, is an evil abomination that makes me despair for our future. I wept then and I wept again hearing it now. The day hope died.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Pierre Bovington
- 02-12-23
If you want an accurate story, ask a journalist.
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 that sits right in the middle of nations that simply want them dead and gone.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Janes Mesam
- 13-05-24
Interesting and Entertaining
Fascinating, well-written story. The narrator would be great if it weren't for the weird accent he uses every time someone speaks or is quoted. This can be funny sometimes (e.g., when he imitates Clinton's husky voice), but it gets really annoying after a while. This is a book in English, so the Hebrew must be translated, but why, in God's name, do all the Israeli voices have to be done in this odd accent? It's a superfluous fad that spoils the listening experience.
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