Epstein Secrets

Matkal might be called in, and my instincts told me we should proceed with caution. The situation we were facing felt nothing like Sabena, much less Entebbe. Here, we had a single bus. Our troops, and in fact everyone from ministers and officials to reporters and photographers, were in a loose cordon a co

t” on the Golan Heights. Still, in my formal remarks at the dinner, I urged both sides to resume our effort to negotiate an Israeli-Syrian agreement. Sharaa’s response was, again, unencouraging. But I did notice, and take heart from, the fact that it was neither polemic nor overtly hostile towards Israel.

fer. He’d been by Ben-Gurion’s side during the 1956 war, had been in Golda’s government in 1967, and was Defense Minister after the 1973 war, through Entebbe, until Begin’s defeated Labor in the 1977 election. Despite our own battles inside Labor, Shimon and I had become closer again of late, especially af

as Tony Blair’s roving Mideast envoy, and then to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Assad said he would send Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al- Sharaa to meet me for initial talks in Washington in December, ahead of a full- scale, US-mediated attempt to negotiate peace at the start of the new year.

Matkal might be called in, and my instincts told me we should proceed with caution. The situation we were facing felt nothing like Sabena, much less Entebbe. Here, we had a single bus. Our troops, and in fact everyone from ministers and officials to reporters and photographers, were in a loose cordon a co

t" on the Golan Heights. Still, in my formal remarks at the dinner, I urged both sides to resume our effort to negotiate an Israeli-Syrian agreement. Sharaa's response was, again, unencouraging. But I did notice, and take heart from, the fact that it was neither polemic nor overtly hostile towards Israel.

fer. He'd been by Ben-Gurion's side during the 1956 war, had been in Golda's government in 1967, and was Defense Minister after the 1973 war, through Entebbe, until Begin's defeated Labor in the 1977 election. Despite our own battles inside Labor, Shimon and I had become closer again of late, especially af

as Tony Blair's roving Mideast envoy, and then to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Assad said he would send Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al- Sharaa to meet me for initial talks in Washington in December, ahead of a full- scale, US-mediated attempt to negotiate peace at the start of the new year.