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

the alternative scenario: that Sadat might strike with more limited territorial objectives and, under cover of his SAM batteries on the other side of the Suez Canal, advance into the Sinai. In the Lebanon war, the inquiry suggested, Yehoshua Saguy did try to warn the generals, and the government, about major ris

aking nine-month investigation by the Doha-based al-Jazeera TV, it was proven that high levels of the deadly radioactive polonium 210 were found in Yasser Arafat's effects. The poison avoids detection unless specifically searched for at a laboratory, explaining why nobody noticed it back in 2004. Two years aft

al were registered as "unknown". This was strange - to say the least - for a man of his age. Israeli papers occasionally came out with reports that Arafat died of AIDS, EFTA00701843 while Palestinians of different strips and colors insisted that their former president had been murdered. For years, t

ortedly kidnapped in the area Friday. The Sinai peninsula was contested territory for much of the past century, largely because it is a gateway to the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and Red Seas. Israeli forces occupied the Sinai in 1956 and 1967 and fought a war against Egyptian troops in

aking nine-month investigation by the Doha-based al-Jazeera TV, it was proven that high levels of the deadly radioactive polonium 210 were found in Yasser Arafat's effects. The poison avoids detection unless specifically searched for at a laboratory, explaining why nobody noticed it back in 2004. Two years af

l were registered as "unknown". This was strange - to say the least - for a man of his age. Israeli papers occasionally came out with reports that Arafat died of AIDS, while Palestinians of different strips and colors insisted that their former president had been murdered. For years, the world scoff

portedly kidnapped in the area Friday. The Sinai peninsula was contested territory for much of the past century, largely because it is a gateway to the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and Red Seas. Israeli forces occupied the Sinai in 1956 and 1967 and fought a war against Egyptian troops in

or did I doubt that President Clinton, whom I had come to view not just as a diplomatic partner but a friend, would rise to the occasion. But as for Arafat? There was simply no way of knowing. That was why I had pressed President Clinton so hard to convene the summit. That was why, despite the misgiving

deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of truth for the leader of the Palestinians, Yasir Arafat. The Oslo Accords of 1993, groundbreaking though they were, had created a peace process, not peace. Over the past few years, that process had been l

but arming and training them and helping organize cross-border attacks. Then, in 38 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011509 the summer of 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned by the British and French. Ben-Gurion was emboldened to go war by the fact that both Britain and France wanted to retake the c

or did I doubt that President Clinton, whom I had come to view not just as a diplomatic partner but a friend, would rise to the occasion. But as for Arafat? There was simply no way of knowing. That was why I had pressed President Clinton so hard to convene the summit. That was why, despite the misgiving

deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of truth for the leader of the Palestinians, Yasir Arafat. The Oslo Accords of 1993, groundbreaking though they were, had created a peace process, not peace. Over the past few years, that process had been l

but arming and training them and helping organize cross-border attacks. Then, in 38 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027886 the summer of 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned by the British and French. Ben-Gurion was emboldened to go war by the fact that both Britain and France wanted to retake the c

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

the alternative scenario: that Sadat might strike with more limited territorial objectives and, under cover of his SAM batteries on the other side of the Suez Canal, advance into the Sinai. In the Lebanon war, the inquiry suggested, Yehoshua Saguy did try to warn the generals, and the government, about major risk

to the deteriorating economic situation as he devoted to foreign policy. He genuinely believed that he was a pan-Arab leader and was intoxicated by Arafat's description of him as "the Knight of the Arabs." The mounting pressure on President Saleh to step down, along with his son and nephews, is probabl

of Minister al-Arabi came after two important decisions were taken by the new ruling Military Council: (1) it allowed two Iranian warships to cross the Suez Canal on their way to Syria; and (2) it permitted Hamas officials to travel though Rafah's crossing, thus reversing President Mubarak's policy on this iss

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-

t of the intelligence base our military engineers had built after the war into a 2,400-feet-high mountain called Gebel Um-Hashiba, 20 miles back from the Suez Canal. When I radioed in to tell him I'd decided to abandon the operation, I could hear the surprise in his voice, and what seemed reluctance as well. "If

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-

t of the intelligence base our military engineers had built after the war into a 2,400-feet-high mountain called Gebel Um-Hashiba, 20 miles back from the Suez Canal. When I radioed in to tell him I’d decided to abandon the operation, I could hear the surprise in his voice, and what seemed reluctance as well. “If

with rockets as another crashed down out- side. His first taste was at age 13, back in 1970, when the Palestine Liberation Organi- zation, led by Yasser Arafat, began raining rockets on the town. In 1982. Ben-Abo was a soldier who fought in Leba- non for nearly a year in an operation that drove the PLO

er 1973. That long-ago war, like the cur- rent one in Lebanon. began with an Arab sneak attack — a potentially devastating Egyptian thrust across the Suez Canal, cruelly launched on Israel's holiest day. The Israelis initially fumbled against a surpris- ingly ferocious Arab assault and then recovered thank