Epstein Secrets

vant-garde of a half-century earlier. The rise of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party was the latest sign, alo

srael" and opposed to any Palestinian state - had become the 21"-century equivalent of the kibbutz avant-garde of a half-century earlier. The rise of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party was the latest sign, alongside a move rightward within the Likud itself. For Bibi to say yes to a settlement freeze would mean

to my regret and Bibi's evident frustration once I'd got home, the press highlighted this dramatic difference in mood. Emerging from talks with me at the State Department, Hillary told reporters that our talks had gone "wonderfully." She added: "As longtime friends do, much was said. And much didn't need to be said." S

ent. We went down six seats, to 13. The big gainer was a far-right, stridently anti-Arab party called Yisrael Beitenu, led by a former Likudnik named Avigdor Lieberman. Tzipi’s attempt to form a coalition became less a political process than a contest between rival stalls in a Middle Eastern bazaar. Bibi was holding

srael” and opposed to any Palestinian state — had become the 21*-century equivalent of the kibbutz avant-garde of a half-century earlier. The rise of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party was the latest sign, alongside a move rightward within the Likud itself. For Bibi to say yes to a settlement freeze would mean

to my regret and Bibi’s evident frustration once I’d got home, the press highlighted this dramatic difference in mood. Emerging from talks with me at the State Department, Hillary told reporters that our talks had gone “wonderfully.” She added: “As longtime friends do, much was said. And much didn’t need to be said.” S

is not toothless, but it is fragmented, and potentially in disarray. The Likud Party apparatus is in the hands of Danny Danon, the Party chairman. Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Minister, who's aiming to topple Netanyahu, controls his old ultra-rightist party, Yisrael Beiteinu; this has left many of the Likud's

rom the seventh floor (the secretary's suite in Foggy Bottom), caring little about the foreign and civil service or the institutional weaknesses of the State Department. That absolutely should not be the case for an administration whose approach to the world is fundamentally diplomatic. The Obama administration is

Times, found that the Israelis had indeed used excessive force but that the Gaza embargo was legal. On the Israeli side, hard-line foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman at every turn tried to prevent a negotiated outcome from being finalized. Turks did not make it easier either by taking inflexible positions that mad

r much of the past decade. Shortly after 9/11, in an effort to win Arab “hearts and minds” in the mold of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the State Department poured hundreds of millions into a new public- diplomacy initiative, overseen by former ad executive Charlotte Beers and then Bush communications cza