Epstein Secrets

me during this critical stage of Israel’s history, had guided me from the moment I became Prime Minister. In my very first discussions with President Clinton a year earlier — a long weekend, beginning at the White House and moving on to Camp David — I had mapped out at great length, in great detail, every

ut with guns and explosives — would be only a matter of time. I knew something else as well. This would be a moment of truth not just for me. Or for Bill Clinton, a man who understood our conflict more deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of tr

Prime Minister. In my very first discussions with President Clinton a year earlier — a long weekend, beginning at the

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

central role meant the threat to Israel would be dramatically reduced. I’m much less sure whether the elder President Bush, whose election defeat to Bill Clinton came just two days before our final exercise in the Negev, would have agreed with the attack. After the victory in the Gulf War, Bush had deliberatel

ut international politics. I remember one afternoon in the summer of 1992 when he mentioned the then US presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He’d met Clinton for the first time in Washington, after two days of talks with President Bush at his summer home in Maine. Rabin was naturally more comfortable deali

ld go on to forge a much closer relationship with President Clinton than between any previous Israeli and US leader.

. 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

l beyond the diplomacy of the Middle East: science, music, and our shared interest in history. What most struck Nava and me, however, was the way the Clintons interacted with each other. The scandal surrounding Monica Lewinsky was still fresh. I suppose we expected to see signs of tension. Whether they were

ing and running the election campaign. We met at Labor headquarters in Milbank Towers so Philip could show me the “war room” — modelled, in part, on Bill Clinton’s campaign operation — from which the victory had been planned and executed. It was a large, open-plan space, nothing like the warren of offices and co

to revive it, we were running against the clock. President Clinton, a key player in any hope of turning the promise

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

me during this critical stage of Israel’s history, had guided me from the moment I became Prime Minister. In my very first discussions with President Clinton a year earlier — a long weekend, beginning at the White House and moving on to Camp David — I had mapped out at great length, in great detail, every

ut with guns and explosives — would be only a matter of time. I knew something else as well. This would be a moment of truth not just for me. Or for Bill Clinton, a man who understood our conflict more deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of tr

Prime Minister. In my very first discussions with President Clinton a year earlier — a long weekend, beginning at the

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