On 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. More than a tale of 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.
Murder in the name of God is the first book to place in proper perspective the motives of the people responsible for Rabin’s assassination: the nationalist rabbis who passed sentence on him by invoking an arcane talmudic ruling; the right-wing politicians who joined in a sophisticated campaign of incitement against him; the militant Israeli settler for whom the Oslo accords spelled betrayal; the security experts who saw what was coming but failed to prevent it; and the murderer who regarded himself as a saviour.