Epstein Secrets

ithout an air force capable of breaching our defences and striking towns and cities deep inside Israel. No one pressed the alternative scenario: that Sadat might strike with more limited territorial objectives and, under cover of his SAM batteries on the other side of the Suez Canal, advance into the Sin

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

were not willing or ready to make peace. We might, initially at least, have to settle for a more incremental step. “Right here in Camp David, Begin, Sadat and Carter couldn’t complete the process,” I pointed out. “They signed a “framework agreement’ and it took months of further diplomacy to reach a pea

test prospect of movement on Oslo. In October, Bibi did finally try to seize the initiative. He wrapping up the redeployment details in a summit with Arafat and Clinton and Arafat in Wye River. But as soon as he got back home, he started backtracking, rather than risk facing down his right-wing critics in

attraction in getting a deal with Syria first: it would increase our negotiating leverage with the Palestinians. That would certainly not be lost on Yasir Arafat — one reason that I realized the importance of an early meeting with him, to convey my commitment to keeping the Oslo process alive, and, if possible

were not willing or ready to make peace. We might, initially at least, have to settle for a more incremental step. "Right here in Camp David, Begin, Sadat and Carter couldn't complete the process," I pointed out. "They signed a "framework agreement' and it took months of further diplomacy to reach a pea

test prospect of movement on Oslo. In October, Bibi did finally try to seize the initiative. He wrapping up the redeployment details in a summit with Arafat and Clinton and Arafat in Wye River. But as soon as he got back home, he started backtracking, rather than risk facing down his right-wing critics in

54 Chapter Twenty-One President Clinton and I met the next morning. My aim was to persuade him that the time had come for a make-or-break summit with Yasir Arafat. I suspected it would not be easy to convince him, and it wasn't. But I made the argument that if we were to have any hope of moving Oslo forward, we

197 36 (first a victim at age six) in the campaign against female genital mutilation, her eminence had won her international notice. Then by the Sadat regime she was dismissed from her fourteen-year job in the Ministry of Health. When she wrote a memoir about her time in jail, she began it using a

itory, in Gaza and the West Bank, and weapons to Yasser Arafat's PLO. Several rabbis connected to the settler m

a traitor for having embarked on the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians and handed over territory, in Gaza and the West Bank, and weapons to Yasser Arafat's PLO. Several rabbis connected to the settler movement had reportedly given spiritual cover to the plotters, who included the gunman Yigal Amir, by

ithout an air force capable of breaching our defences and striking towns and cities deep inside Israel. No one pressed the alternative scenario: that Sadat might strike with more limited territorial objectives and, under cover of his SAM batteries on the other side of the Suez Canal, advance into the Sin

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 impr

yptians, with the exception of Mr. Chedli Klibi of Tunisia, who assumed the post after the League's headquarters were moved to Tunis upon President Sadat's signing of the Camp David Agreements with Israel. The issue will be a test for Egypt at a time when it is trying to restore its stature as the for

to the deteriorating economic situation as he devoted to foreign policy. He genuinely believed that he was a pan-Arab leader and was intoxicated by Arafat's description of him as "the Knight of the Arabs." The mounting pressure on President Saleh to step down, along with his son and nephews, is probabl

hter jets, Golda contacted the Americans to propose a cease-fire in the south. But having retaken the Suez Canal and pushed into the Sinai, President Sadat was in no mood to call a halt to the fighting. The only way we were going to end the war was to retake the canal and defeat the even larger Egyptian

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-

gh. In 1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem in a gesture of peace. Seeing positive developments, US President Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David in 1978 to negotiate peace. One agreement, A Framework for Peace in the Middle East, addre

vely implementing the peace agreements. In 1998, US President Bill Clinton invited Israeli Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to sign an agreement to implement the procedures outlined in the Oslo Accords. After days of intense debate, the agreement was signed. However, li

hter jets, Golda contacted the Americans to propose a cease-fire in the south. But having retaken the Suez Canal and pushed into the Sinai, President Sadat was in no mood to call a halt to the fighting. The only way we were going to end the war was to retake the canal and defeat the even larger Egyptian

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-

ly orchestrated by Di. Kissinger, who managed to create enough distance between the Unit- ed States and Israel to allow some negotiating room. Mr. Sadat felt confident enough as the "hero of the crossing" to make his famous trip to Jerusalem. Even the terrorist group of the day, the Palestine Libe

with rockets as another crashed down out- side. His first taste was at age 13, back in 1970, when the Palestine Liberation Organi- zation, led by Yasser Arafat, began raining rockets on the town. In 1982. Ben-Abo was a soldier who fought in Leba- non for nearly a year in an operation that drove the PLO