Dan Ephron’s Killing a King may provide a readable and accurate account of the events leading up to Yitzḥak Rabin’s assassination, writes Seth Mandel, but these merits are outweighed by the author’s “naked ideological agenda.” This causes him to miss the profound realignment in Israeli politics that is Rabin’s real legacy:

The two camps have, [in effect], switched sides. Israel’s left bitterly credits Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, with victory; the two-state solution is dead, they say, and its death throes began that night in 1995. Meanwhile, many of the leaders on Israel’s right, including its past two prime ministers, now essentially express their agreement with the goal of Oslo. The fulfillment of Rabin’s peace process, they say, will be necessary in the long term to secure a viable future for the Jewish state. . . .

All the spin in the world can’t change the fact that the current Likud prime minister stands today to the left of Yitzḥak Rabin in 1995. Yigal Amir received the ultimate punishment for his hubris: his monstrous act actually advanced the peace process inside Israel. [But] nothing anyone can do seems able to advance the process for the Palestinians, who want none of it.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.