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

ed a few weeks earlier by Olmert on a threat hundreds of miles further away: a construction site in northeast Syria, along the Euphrates River, where Mossad had uncovered evidence that the Syrians, with technical help from North Korea and funding from Iran, were building a nuclear reactor. *** I had got t

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

ed a few weeks earlier by Olmert on a threat hundreds of miles further away: a construction site in northeast Syria, along the Euphrates River, where Mossad had uncovered evidence that the Syrians, with technical help from North Korea and funding from Iran, were building a nuclear reactor. I had got to k

d owing to Kremlin pressure. Zvi Magen, the former Israeli ambassador to Russia, credits this warming bilateral relationship in part to the rise of Avigdor Lieberman, the former Moldovan nightclub bouncer turned Israeli foreign minister who was just cleared of corruption charges. Lieberman not only congratulated

ple of hunting down enemies abroad. After Yandarbiyev's assassination, one FSB colonel in the elite group Vympel told Soldatov: `Take a look at the Mossad. Why cannot we do the same with our terrorists?'" Of course, what Russia can do with its terrorists, it can also do with its dissidents. Ask Marin

80, twelve thousand Jews lived in the West Bank, "east of democracy," Beinart writes; now they number more than three hundred thousand, and include Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's wildly xenophobic Foreign Minister. Lieberman has advocated the execution of Arab members of parliament who dare to meet with leaders of

experience demonstrates both their deep commitment to Israel's security and their expertise in pronouncing on it, see the issue differently. Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan described the idea of an Israeli air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities as "the stupidest thing I have ever heard." Another form

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

not yet been heard from, chief among them Moshe Kahlon, the popular former Likud Minister of Communications. Then there are Meir Dagan, the former Mossad head, and Yuval Diskin, the former head of Israel's internal security agency. All are privately close to Olmert and had been waiting to see if he w

ill make uncomfortable reading for Bibi. But very little of it will surprise him, or his own Likud rivals further to the right, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Economy Minister, Naftali Bennett. I have said almost all of it to them behind closed doors in the past few years, more than once. When I fin

r, 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 negotiators at Camp David, not to mention the d

ill make uncomfortable reading for Bibi. But very little of it will surprise him, or his own Likud rivals further to the right, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Economy Minister, Naftali Bennett. I have said almost all of it to them behind closed doors in the past few years, more than once. When I fin

r, 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 negotiators at Camp David, not to mention the d