Epstein Secrets

be at stake for Damascus, I certainly couldn’t see the Phalangists being able to drive them out by force. The more immediate, open question involved Arafat and the Palestinians. Our other two invasion forces had driven almost all the PLO fighters out of south Lebanon, though not without costs and casualt

s, and at the dinner held at one of King Juan Carlos’s palatial estates, and, for me, a first opportunity to meet not only Arab foreign ministers but Yasir Arafat. My first, brief encounter with Arafat began a bit embarrassingly. I’d arrived a few minutes early for the conference dinner and was led into an imp

res might bring Labor back to power. There was no prospect he’d win an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset. No one had ever done that, not even Ben-Gurion in his political heyday. From 1948, Israel’s political landscape had been populated by at least a dozen-or-so parties, mostly a reflection of the var

be at stake for Damascus, I certainly couldn't see the Phalangists being able to drive them out by force. The more immediate, open question involved Arafat and the Palestinians. Our other two invasion forces had driven almost all the PLO fighters out of south Lebanon, though not without costs and casualt

s, and at the dinner held at one of King Juan Carlos's palatial estates, and, for me, a first opportunity to meet not only Arab foreign ministers but Yasir Arafat. My first, brief encounter with Arafat began a bit embarrassingly. I'd arrived a few minutes early for the conference dinner and was led into an impr

res might bring Labor back to power. There was no prospect he'd win an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset. No one had ever done that, not even Ben-Gurion in his political heyday. From 1948, Israel's political landscape had been populated by at least a dozen-or-so parties, mostly a reflection of the var

en less interested than we were in assuming responsibility for the more than one-and-a-half million Palestinians who lived there. I doubted that even Arafat would have been ready to do so. But relations had only worsened, since his death in 2004, between the Fatah old guard in the Palestinian Authority on

tructure, the economy, the internal security and the stability needed for an eventual state to succeed. He was trying to do for the Palestinians what Ben-Gurion had done before 1948. He and I met and talked often but discreetly — sometimes in his office in Ramallah, sometimes in mine, sometimes over dinner in

1967 war had turned out to be hollow words. It was time for a new generation, and a new, more direct, form of confrontation with the "Zionist enemy." Arafat had set up camp with nearly a thousand men just across the Jordan River, in a town called Karameh. From early 1968, they had been launching hit- and-

Nili. Her parental home was in Tiberias. Her parents were from old Sephardi families, with a centuries-long history in Palestine, and were also solid Ben-Gurion Labor supporters. Her father had fought in the British army in the Second World War. He now ran the branch of Bank Leumi in Tiberias. Her mother ran

en less interested than we were in assuming responsibility for the more than one-and-a-half million Palestinians who lived there. I doubted that even Arafat would have been ready to do so. But relations had only worsened, since his death in 2004, between the Fatah old guard in the Palestinian Authority on

tructure, the economy, the internal security and the stability needed for an eventual state to succeed. He was trying to do for the Palestinians what Ben-Gurion had done before 1948. He and I met and talked often but discreetly - sometimes in his office in Ramallah, sometimes in mine, sometimes over dinner in

d Schmidbauer. Wheat Beer for Israel On that evening, Kohl and Rabin discussed the path to peace in the Middle East. Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the year before, together with Peres. For the first time in a long time, conciliation seemed possibl

orrow," as David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the State of Israel, once said. "We shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter," was the lesson Ben-Gurion and others drew from Auschwitz. Armed with nuclear weapons, the submarines are a signal to any enemy that the Jewish state itself would not be tota

967 war had turned out to be hollow words. It was time for a new generation, and a new, more direct, form of confrontation with the “Zionist enemy.” Arafat had set up camp with nearly a thousand men just across the Jordan River, in a town called Karameh. From early 1968, they had been launching hit- and-

Nili. Her parental home was in Tiberias. Her parents were from old Sephardi families, with a centuries-long history in Palestine, and were also solid Ben-Gurion Labor supporters. Her father had fought in the British army in the Second World War. He now ran the branch of Bank Leumi in Tiberias. Her mother ran