The Assassination of a Prime Minister–The Intelligence Failure that Failed to Prevent the Murder of Yitzhak Rabin

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, on the evening of November 4, 1995, by an extreme right-wing Jew was one of the most traumatic events in the history of the State of Israel. The question is: Was it preventable? Contrary to the public perception that the assassination happened as a result of a security failure and poor management of the Israel Security Agency (ISA), I argue that the murder was mainly due to an ISA intelligence failure. Based on information that was in the hands of the ISA (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), this event was not a complete surprise, and the ISA possibly could have prevented this political assassination by stopping the killer in advance. However, intelligence failures in counter-intelligence are much less researched than strategic intelligence failures such as Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa, the Yom Kippur War, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003).