Rabin of Israel

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.