ABSTRACT
“I have no regrets. I acted alone and on orders from God.” This was the explanation offered by Yigal Amir, the young Jewish extremist who assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. His words were not the rantings of a madman but expressed the views of a religious zealot and terrorist. His violent act not only was calculated to achieve a political end— to destroy the Arab-Israeli peace process—but was also motivated by the desire to fulfill, in his own mind, a divine command. If terrorism is in essence the use of violence, or the threat of it, for political purposes, then Rabin’s assassination was undoubtedly a terrorist act. But it was one with a distinct, profoundly significant, religious background.
