Epstein Secrets

he Jewish National Fund, supported financially by leading Jewish figures in western Europe and the US, bought 2,000 acres from an Arab landowner near Wadi Khawaret. The area was set aside for three Jewish settlements: a moshav called Kfar Haim, where the land was divided into family plots, and two kibbutzim. One

ter of wood-and-tarpaper huts amid a few orange groves and vegetable fields and chicken coops. It was just across the road from an Arab village named Wadi Khawaret, which disappeared, with the establishment of the State of Israel, when I was six years old. As Prime Minister half-a-century later, during my stubb

awn in Private Benjamin. The main misunderstanding, however, went deeper. The assumption appeared to be that my military achievements, especially in Sayeret Matkal, were down to a mix of brute force and raw courage. Courage, of course, was a requirement: the willingness to take risks, if the rewards for success,

that was lost in the political storm that followed. All I’d done was answer as honestly I could. What if I had been one of the Palestinian babies in Wadi Khawaret, but with the same mind and same impulses that had defined my life as an Israeli? I assumed that instead of becoming an Israeli soldier and politicia

he summit’s collapse. My main concern was the possibility of violence. Even before returning home, I’d phoned Shaul Mofaz and Avi Dichter, the former Sayeret Matkal officer who was now head of the Shin Bet. “Let’s hope the violence doesn’t come,” I told them. “But if it does, make sure we are ready.” Though there

eer by training, he was a reserve army general who, when I was chief of staff, had been in charge of the logistics branch of the military. I gave him Sayeret Matkal backup as well, in the person of Danny Yatom, my longtime friend and former sayeret deputy. But all that was process. Winning or losing would come d

he Jewish National Fund, supported financially by leading Jewish figures in western Europe and the US, bought 2,000 acres from an Arab landowner near Wadi Khawaret. The area was set aside for three Jewish settlements: a moshav called Kfar Haim, where the land was divided into family plots, and two kibbutzim. One

ter of wood-and-tarpaper huts amid a few orange groves and vegetable fields and chicken coops. It was just across the road from an Arab village named Wadi Khawaret, which disappeared, with the establishment of the State of Israel, when I was six years old. As Prime Minister half-a-century later, during my stubb

awn in Private Benjamin. The main misunderstanding, however, went deeper. The assumption appeared to be that my military achievements, especially in Sayeret Matkal, were down to a mix of brute force and raw courage. Courage, of course, was a requirement: the willingness to take risks, if the rewards for success,

that was lost in the political storm that followed. All I'd done was answer as honestly I could. What if I had been one of the Palestinian babies in Wadi Khawaret, but with the same mind and same impulses that had defined my life as an Israeli? I assumed that instead of becoming an Israeli soldier and politicia

he summit's collapse. My main concern was the possibility of violence. Even before returning home, I'd phoned Shaul Mofaz and Avi Dichter, the former Sayeret Matkal officer who was now head of the Shin Bet. "Let's hope the violence doesn't come," I told them. "But if it does, make sure we are ready." Though there

eer by training, he was a reserve army general who, when I was chief of staff, had been in charge of the logistics branch of the military. I gave him Sayeret Matkal backup as well, in the person of Danny Yatom, my longtime friend and former sayeret deputy. *** But all that was process. Winning or losing would com