Shalom, Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin.(Brief Article)

The Jerusalem Report Staff, edited by David Horovitz. Newmarket, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 1-55704-287-X

At the time of his assassination last November, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to aides interviewed for this moving, dramatic biography, saw no urgent need for an Israel-Syria accord, though his long-range goal was reconciliation with all the Arab regimes to create a common front against the spread of Islamic fundamentalist extremism. Written by the staff of the Jerusalem Report, an Israeli biweekly, English-language magazine (of which Horovitz is managing editor), this deeply felt, smoothly edited portrait limns an iconoclastic pragmatist, a chain-smoking …