Epstein Secrets

Yitzhak was always punctilious in not broaching before I’d left the army. Shimon had also taken to including me — usually along with Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a bright young historian who would become our ambassador to Spain before entering politics himself — in a coterie of “youngsters” he would bring alo

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011754 votes: one for a party list and one for a directly elected Prime Minister. This would be a personal test, an opportunity for Shimon to build on the still-tenuous achievement of Oslo and finally secure the endorsement of the Israeli people. It seemed, for a while, I might even hav

had made Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres. Though the two men had grown to respect each another over the years, Rabin neither trusted, nor much liked, Shimon. In fact, though Peres’s support inside Labor had secured him the foreign ministry, Rabin had stipulated that all peace talks would remain under his

oted, we attended an event for Labor supporters north of Tel Aviv, before flying to Beersheva to spend the final hours in the Negev. I’d arranged for Shlomo Ben-Ami to go to Kiryat Shmona in the north — emphasizing, as throughout the campaign, our determination to broaden our support beyond Labor’s heartland. The

’d agree on a unity government. To my amusement, if not altogether to my surprise, I got word that Bibi was putting out separate political feelers to Shimon Peres. But before long, it became clear there was a specific political motivation behind his approaching me. It was indeed the peace process. But it

And while I did make a brief attempt to return as party leader later in the year, when it was clear I wasn’t going to win, I threw my support behind Shimon and against the other challenger, the longtime labor- union leader Amir Peretz, who was running on a platform to take Labor out of Sharon’s governmen

Yitzhak was always punctilious in not broaching before I'd left the army. Shimon had also taken to including me - usually along with Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a bright young historian who would become our ambassador to Spain before entering politics himself - in a coterie of "youngsters" he would bring alo

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028131 votes: one for a party list and one for a directly elected Prime Minister. This would be a personal test, an opportunity for Shimon to build on the still-tenuous achievement of Oslo and finally secure the endorsement of the Israeli people. It seemed, for a while, I might even have

had made Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres. Though the two men had grown to respect each another over the years, Rabin neither trusted, nor much liked, Shimon. In fact, though Peres's support inside Labor had secured him the foreign ministry, Rabin had stipulated that all peace talks would remain under his

oted, we attended an event for Labor supporters north of Tel Aviv, before flying to Beersheva to spend the final hours in the Negev. I'd arranged for Shlomo Ben-Ami to go to Kiryat Shmona in the north - emphasizing, as throughout the campaign, our determination to broaden our support beyond Labor's heartland. The

'd agree on a unity government. To my amusement, if not altogether to my surprise, I got word that Bibi was putting out separate political feelers to Shimon Peres. But before long, it became clear there was a specific political motivation behind his approaching me. It was indeed the peace process. But it

GHT_028163 / BARAK / 30 I'd tried not to pay too much attention to newspaper polls during the campaign, perhaps because even the "good" ones, to use Shimon's phrase, had me with just a narrow lead, with Yitzhik Mordechai's 10 or 11 percent still likely to prevent outright victory in the first round. But