Rabin of Israel - Hardcover

Slater, Robert

4.33

12 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312093683 ISBN 13: 9780312093686

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1993

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The historic elevation of Yitzhak Rabin to prime minister of Israel in 1992 brought new hope for lasting peace in the Middle East. His Labor party's triumph signaled a new attitude on the part of the Israeli people, a desire for an end to decades of wearying conflict.
Yet this man in whom so many have placed their hopes remains an enigma. Rabin, a fierce and uncompromising military leader whose actions as chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces during the Six Day War led to Israeli control of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, seemed poised to surrender at least part of those gains in the name of peace.
Robert Slater, whose acclaimed biography of Moshe Dayan was nominated for the National Jewish Book Award, gives us a fully realized portrait of Rabin based on interviews with Rabin's colleagues, friends, family and Rabin himself, in this, the first biography of the prime minister.
Rabin emerges as a shy, diffident, even mysterious man, whose changing fortunes seem to echo the contradictions within himself. His first tenure as prime minister during the mid-1970s was marked by both his resolute actions during the Entebbe hostage crisis and his ignominious resignation as the result of a petty financial scandal. Yet Rabin was returned to office at one of the most crucial moments in Israel's history.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

A new and significantly expanded edition of Time correspondent Slater's 1977 biography (not reviewed) of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's past and present prime minister. About half of the text is new, as Slater (Warrior Statesman, 1991, etc.) covers Rabin's political exile in the late 70's; his stint as Israel's defense minister in the 80's; his triumphant return to power in 1992; and the dramatic first six months of his new government. Earlier chapters trace the career of Rabin from the 1948 War of Independence onward. As the triumphant hero of the Six-Day War in June 1967, Rabin went on to become a successful ambassador in Washington, and, when he replaced Golda Meir as prime minster in June 1974, became Israel's first sabra (``native-born'') prime minister. Replete with anecdotes based on interviews with ``two hundred people who have known Rabin at various stages of his life,'' and containing interviews with Rabin and members of his immediate family, a sympathetic portrait emerges here of a complex but sincere human being. Slater sees Rabin as a major voice of reality in Israeli politics, one who dares to change an unworkable status quo: ``I've learned,'' he quotes Rabin as saying in 1988, ``[that] you can't rule by force over one and a half million Palestinians.'' Slater's admirable and admiring portrait of Rabin contends that only this ruffled but proud bird, this hawkish dove, can deliver the olive branch to the contentious Middle East. (Eight pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Updating a 1977 book, this brisk political biography profiles Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as a centrist with a rare combination of toughness and flexibility. Through interviews with the taciturn, introverted Rabin, son of Russian immigrants to Palestine, with his family and associates, Time 's Jerusalem correspondent Slater brings us closer to the former military hero, whose overriding concern as a political leader is Israel's national security. New chapters cover his political exile as a Knesset backbencher, his feud with Labor Party rival Shimon Peres and his military suppression of the Intifada, which convinced Rabin of the necessity for a political solution granting some autonomy to the Palestinian Arabs. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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