Epstein Secrets

for the lessons to be learned from the intifada, my view that we needed a political dialogue had inadvertently become public, from remarks I made in Moshe Dayan’s honor at a memorial event a few months before becoming chief of staff. “We are currently in a struggle with the Palestinians — a long, bitter and c

be at stake for Damascus, I certainly couldn’t see the Phalangists being able to drive them out by force. The more immediate, open question involved Arafat and the Palestinians. Our other two invasion forces had driven almost all the PLO fighters out of south Lebanon, though not without costs and casualt

s, and at the dinner held at one of King Juan Carlos’s palatial estates, and, for me, a first opportunity to meet not only Arab foreign ministers but Yasir Arafat. My first, brief encounter with Arafat began a bit embarrassingly. I’d arrived a few minutes early for the conference dinner and was led into an imp

01. It was led by a 25-year-old named Ariel Sharon, who had been a platoon commander in 1948. With Ben-Gurion and especially his army chief-of-staff, Moshe Dayan, determined to hit back hard at the fedayeen attacks, Sharon took a few dozen hand-picked soldiers and began mounting a different kind of retaliatory

or did I doubt that President Clinton, whom I had come to view not just as a diplomatic partner but a friend, would rise to the occasion. But as for Arafat? There was simply no way of knowing. That was why I had pressed President Clinton so hard to convene the summit. That was why, despite the misgiving

deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of truth for the leader of the Palestinians, Yasir Arafat. The Oslo Accords of 1993, groundbreaking though they were, had created a peace process, not peace. Over the past few years, that process had been l

01. It was led by a 25-year-old named Ariel Sharon, who had been a platoon commander in 1948. With Ben-Gurion and especially his army chief-of-staff, Moshe Dayan, determined to hit back hard at the fedayeen attacks, Sharon took a few dozen hand-picked soldiers and began mounting a different kind of retaliatory

or did I doubt that President Clinton, whom I had come to view not just as a diplomatic partner but a friend, would rise to the occasion. But as for Arafat? There was simply no way of knowing. That was why I had pressed President Clinton so hard to convene the summit. That was why, despite the misgiving

deeply, and was more determined to help us end it, than any other president before him. It was a moment of truth for the leader of the Palestinians, Yasir Arafat. The Oslo Accords of 1993, groundbreaking though they were, had created a peace process, not peace. Over the past few years, that process had been l

omehow clicked from time he arrived in the sayeret. I made him my deputy for my first year in command. There were two others as well, both related to Moshe Dayan, but with a self- assurance all their own: Uzi Dayan, the son of Moshe's brother, who had been killed in the 1948 war when Uzi was only months old; a

1967 war had turned out to be hollow words. It was time for a new generation, and a new, more direct, form of confrontation with the "Zionist enemy." Arafat had set up camp with nearly a thousand men just across the Jordan River, in a town called Karameh. From early 1968, they had been launching hit- and-

very incentive to try to blow up any peace agreement that Abbas signs. By isolating the people of Gaza, America and Israel are radicalizing them. Moshe Dayan famously said that "if you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." Hamas is today Israel's enemy, as the bom

O leaders to achieve peace agreements. It has multiplied the number of settlements since the 1993 Oslo accords tenfold. Even after they got rid of Arafat, Israel has given nothing. Now Lieberman wants to get rid of Abu Mazen, president of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has decided to defend the rig

ng with their German allies, however, Israeli politicians used language that hardly concealed the truth. When the legendary former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan visited Bonn in the fall of 1977, he told then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt about neighboring Egypt's fear "that Israel might use nuclear weapons." Da

d Schmidbauer. Wheat Beer for Israel On that evening, Kohl and Rabin discussed the path to peace in the Middle East. Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the year before, together with Peres. For the first time in a long time, conciliation seemed possibl

mehow clicked from time he arrived in the sayeret. I made him my deputy for my first year in command. There were two others as well, both related to Moshe Dayan, but with a self- assurance all their own: Uzi Dayan, the son of Moshe’s brother, who had been killed in the 1948 war when Uzi was only months old; a

967 war had turned out to be hollow words. It was time for a new generation, and a new, more direct, form of confrontation with the “Zionist enemy.” Arafat had set up camp with nearly a thousand men just across the Jordan River, in a town called Karameh. From early 1968, they had been launching hit- and-