Free Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron Page A

through a mutual friend in Tel Aviv years earlier. Amir noticed that Hampel showed up to class every day and had almost perfect handwriting—neither too sloping nor too tightly packed. Hampel took notice of Amir as well—ambling into class from time to time, muttering something sarcastic, and ducking out before the end of the lecture. He agreed to let Amir pick up his notes before tests and photocopy them at a shop near his home in Tel Aviv.
    The arrangement allowed Amir to spend his time organizing weekly rallies on campus and studying Talmud at Bar-Ilan’s seminary, known informally as the kolel . A long stucco building square in the middle of the university, the kolel played no official role in the studentcurriculum. But it functioned as a gathering place for men to pray and conduct study sessions with rabbis. Many of the young men at the kolel were law students like Amir, and most viewed the Oslo Accord not just as a political misstep but a sin against God. As the semester progressed, Amir would return to the same questions in the study sessions—all revolving around situations where Jews endangered other Jews. What preventative action would Jewish law countenance?
    Somehow, the inquiries did not strike the rabbis as odd. They perceived them as Amir’s attempt to understand the present reality through the lens of scripture; as a natural blending of religion and everyday life. But while other students probed in similar directions, Amir stood out for his sheer fervor. Rabbis and students at the seminary came to view him as stubborn and obsessive.
    By early winter, the Students for Security were staging rallies against the Oslo Accord every week outside campus, drawing several hundred people to a spot along one of Israel’s busiest highways and waving signs at passing cars. The pictures and slogans became increasingly aggressive, depicting Rabin with blood on his hands, comparing him to Philippe Pétain, the leader of Vichy France who collaborated with the Nazis, or declaring him a traitor outright. But the students also socialized during the outings and kept the event to thirty minutes before heading back to class—all of which irritated Amir.
    One week, he and other students persuaded the group to step out onto the highway and stop traffic for several minutes. The event showed remarkable recklessness and almost ended in tragedy. The highway ran four lanes in each direction, with no stoplight for miles. The first wave of cars came at the protesters so fast that some thought they would be run over. But the action paid off. An Israel Radio reporter who happened to be attending a symposium on campus broadcast the chaotic moments live through his cell phone. Suddenly, Students for Security had name recognition.
    Police detective Yoav Gazit would occasionally watch the students gather for the weekly protest from a pedestrian bridge above the highway. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, Gazit was on sabbatical in 1993, taking classes at Bar-Ilan toward a bachelor’s degree in a program geared toward members of law-enforcement agencies.Gazit had worked on a series of high-profile investigations over the years, including a corruption case against Ariel Sharon, the right-wing Knesset member. Short and stout with a warm face and a shock of black hair, he specialized in cultivating a rapport with suspects until they delivered their confessions. Most of the student protesters struck Gazit as harmless; young idealists stirred to action by a policy they opposed. But a few had lashed out at policemen on campus over crackdowns against right-wing protests around the country. In the vicious outbursts and the twinning of politics with this fanatic strain of religion, Gazit sensed trouble.
    Amir had settled into a routine. He left the house in Herzliya around six on most mornings and came home after dark. Before exams, he would spend hours sitting at a plastic patio table in the front yard, marking up Hampel’s notes with a