Epstein Secrets

briefed me on the questions I could expect, not just about the Achille Lauro but the wider issue of Palestinian attacks, as well as Syrian President Hafez al- Assad’s efforts to re-equip his air force after his losses in Lebanon. So I came to the interview prepared. I brought audio tapes of the hijacker

r time, we might manage to extricate ourselves from the escalating violence with Hizbollah; reach a land- for-peace deal with the enigmatic President Hafez al-Assad in Syria; and find some form of coexistence with the Palestinians. He also spoke about international politics. I remember one afternoon in the summe

. He, like all of us who had campaigned for him, knew what was at stake for the country. It had been barely six months since Rabin was gunned down in Tel Aviv’s main square, by a fellow Israeli riding a tide of hatred so blinkered that it could paint Yitzhak — who had worked all his life to create, defend and

effective end of the peace process. Even though Arik assured me privately that he understood my determination to reopen peace efforts with Arafat and Hafez al- Assad, I knew Arik. The path toward peace agreements, assuming they were even possible, would be tough. Sooner or later — and certainly if we fac

giously motivated ideologues, were Labor supporters. And almost no Israel, of any political stripe, 331 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011802 / BARAK / 46 viewed Hafez al-Assad as a natural partner for peace. For years, he’d been a constant, sneering presence on our northern border, denouncing not only Sadat but any Arab lea

he most terror, and death: at bus stations, on buses, in shopping centers, restaurants and cafés. Over a 12-month period, beginning with a bombing of Tel Aviv’s main bus station at the beginning of January 2003, they murdered 145 men, women and children. It would not be until two years’ later, with the West B

ed us. I knew the drill: the same thing had happened when I had come tantalizingly close to finalizing a peace deal with Syria’s then-dying dictator, Hafez al-Assad, a few months earlier. Yet these three dedicated men — Gili, who was by training a lawyer; Shlomo, an academic; and Danny, a former Mossad chief — ha

attacks after one of its planes had been hijacked to Algiers in the summer of 1968. It was also the same kind of plane — a Sabena flight, hijacked to Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport — which I stormed, before sunrise, four years later with a force of nearly two dozen Matkal commandos. The shooting was over withi

ed us. I knew the drill: the same thing had happened when I had come tantalizingly close to finalizing a peace deal with Syria’s then-dying dictator, Hafez al-Assad, a few months earlier. Yet these three dedicated men — Gili, who was by training a lawyer; Shlomo, an academic; and Danny, a former Mossad chief — ha

attacks after one of its planes had been hijacked to Algiers in the summer of 1968. It was also the same kind of plane — a Sabena flight, hijacked to Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport — which I stormed, before sunrise, four years later with a force of nearly two dozen Matkal commandos. The shooting was over withi