Epstein Secrets

eace 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 — had just been through dozens of hours of intricately detailed talks with each of Arafat’s top negoti

Arafat was rarely off of my radar. By the early 1970s, he and his fighters had been expelled by King Hussein’s army from Jordan and were re-based in Lebanon. Arafat was becoming a significant figure on the Arab and world political stage, and an increasingly uncomfortable thorn in Israel’s side. I was head

assumed a kind of historical inevitability of Israeli trtumph. Though we’d ending up prevailing in 1973, it was impossible not to wonder whether, as Shlomo suggested, we had missed the signs of a possible peace beforehand. Now, however, we were facing an escalating challenge from an enemy with no intere

opular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. That meant a quieter eastern frontier. But the Palestinian groups rebased across our northern border in Lebanon. When Jordanian Prime Minister Wafsi al-Tal was assassinated, it proved to be the start of a series of killings and terror attacks by a new group wit

hen I left the army. Also, Shlomo Ben-Ami, the Moroccan-born, Oxford-educated historian and diplomat who had run against me for the Labor leadership. Shlomo had a gift for systematic analysis and keen judgement, especially on security issues, which I highly valued. It did not escape the attention of Isra

t military operations for approval. I remember one occasion when an air force general laid out the details of a planned helicopter-borne mission into Lebanon. I added a few remarks in summary. Raful Eitan and Arik Sharon were both ministers. Within seconds, they were peppering the general and me with quest

eace 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 — had just been through dozens of hours of intricately detailed talks with each of Arafat’s top negoti

Arafat was rarely off of my radar. By the early 1970s, he and his fighters had been expelled by King Hussein’s army from Jordan and were re-based in Lebanon. Arafat was becoming a significant figure on the Arab and world political stage, and an increasingly uncomfortable thorn in Israel’s side. I was head

assumed a kind of historical inevitability of Israeli triumph. Though we'd ending up prevailing in 1973, it was impossible not to wonder whether, as Shlomo suggested, we had missed the signs of a possible peace beforehand. Now, however, we were facing an escalating challenge from an enemy with no interes

opular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. That meant a quieter eastern frontier. But the Palestinian groups rebased across our northern border in Lebanon. When Jordanian Prime Minister Wafsi al-Tal was assassinated, it proved to be the start of a series of killings and terror attacks by a new group wit

hen I left the army. Also, Shlomo Ben-Ami, the Moroccan-born, Oxford-educated historian and diplomat who had run against me for the Labor leadership. Shlomo had a gift for systematic analysis and keen judgement, especially on security issues, which I highly valued. It did not escape the attention of Israe

t military operations for approval. I remember one occasion when an air force general laid out the details of a planned helicopter-borne mission into Lebanon. I added a few remarks in summary. Raful Eitan and Arik Sharon were both ministers. Within seconds, they were peppering the general and me with quest