Epstein Secrets

5 years of military service and more than a decade in public life, Barak remains something of a cipher -- a man one of Israel's leading columnists, Ari Shavit, compares to a stealth bomber ("the usual radar doesn't capture him"). "I don't know anyone more difficult to read," Shavit says. It's no wonder:

position on the Palestinian peace process -- he still favors a two-state solution, but one achieved by Israel's unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank -- can seem, when contrasted with his early record as a peacemaker, like the reaction of a dove mugged by reality. But the hawk- dove divide is hard

lestinians and not under Israel's conditions. Dagan said that Israeli acceptance of the move could actually minimize the damage. (Maariv) Columnist Ari Shavit writes in Haaretz that "Netanyahu missed the last chance that history will give him. In another few months, reality will come knocking. Israel will

ing him another excuse not to talk. May I suggest a Tahrir Square alternative? Announce that every Friday will be "Peace Day," and have thousands of West Bank Palestinians march nonviolently to Jerusalem, carrying two things, an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other. The si

Fatah is moving slowly: the Hamas leaders here are likely to lose their jobs. The hospital supply crisis is a direct result of tensions with Fatah in the West Bank, which has kept the supplies from being shipped here. Efforts by fringe Islamist groups to challenge Hamas have had little effect. And it has been a

n the reaction that the prime minister's office even asked him to return his diplomatic passport. What seems to be bothering some Israelis, including Ari Shavit, the respected Haaretz journalist, is that Dagan has now "made the Iranians think they can continue galloping to the bomb because they are not in any