Epstein Secrets

rty he understood that "there are no shortcuts and leadership is not a one-man show." The party bought it, and he replaced Peretz in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima-led coalition government. EFTA00693045 Then, in 2008, Olmert was forced to resign because of corruption allegations, and new elections

show." The party bought it, and he replaced Peretz in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima-led coalition government. EFTA00693045 Then, in 2008, Olmert was forced to resign because of corruption allegations, and new elections brought Netanyahu and the Likud back to power. This development proved aw

ty and foreign policy thinking in the last 20 years." In a land of dirty politicians, furthermore, Barak is more or less clean. Yet leaders such as Lieberman and Olmert, both of whom have been convicted of criminal charges, are more popular and are seen as viable candidates while Barak, whom one comment

ls as he'd expected. This is not the first time the Israelis have launched a war for electoral gain. Shimon Peres did it to Lebanon in 1996 and the Olmert-Livni-Barak alliance did it to Gaza in 2008. What is important here is the immoral and short- sighted stance of the European and US governments; the

. 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 rights of its people with a EFTA_R1_0046217

/ BARAK / 115 Minister, I felt it was not my place to criticize Olmert publicly when Israeli troops were in action. Two days in, in fact, I told a television interviewer that the government had every right to respond and

ent 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 A vigdor 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

n Israel the threat is especially acute. And the concern comes not only from its most persistent critics. The former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have both warned of a descent into apartheid, xenophobia, and isolation. The political corrosion begins, of course, with the occupation of the Pal

acy," 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 Hamas. His McCarthyite allies call for citizens to swear

/ BARAK / 115 Minister, I felt it was not my place to criticize Olmert publicly when Israeli troops were in action. Two days in, in fact, I told a television interviewer that the government had every right to respond and

lition, that was not an easy argument to make to my reduced Knesset contingent. They saw joining Bibi, especially in a government with the right-wing Lieberman as Foreign Minister, as a betrayal of all the efforts that they and I had made to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Still, the decision on whether

vote on the cease-fire resolution. The final vote was 24-0, with one abstention and plenty of heated debate, media reports said. Prime Minister Ehud Olniert, whose handling of the war has come under increasing criticism for its shifting objectives and per- ceived indecision, character- ized the resolut

victory of anti-war political novice Ned Lamont over three-term incum- bent Sen. Joe Lieberman. D-Corm.. in last week's Democratic primary — Sen. Lieberman had remained a staunch defender of the war — to portray the Democrats as America- hating wimps. With so many in- cumbents struggling to distance

ersion of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, “Mr. Nyet,” a man who will be bypassed by history. Here is what Netanyahu’s immediate predecessor, Ehud Olmert, said in a widely reported speech to the Israeli Knesset in 2008: “We must give up Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and return to the core of the terr

nd return to the core of the territory that is the State of Israel prior to 1967, with minor corrections dictated by the reality created since then.” Olmert, a man with a reputation as a hard-liner, said that meant Israel would keep about 6 percent of the West Bank — the major settlements — and give up la

0s and 1930s). When I said I didn’t consider a binational state very realistic, he conceded the point, before noting that in the age of Netanyahu and Lieberman, most Palestinians don’t consider a two-state solution very realistic either. After a while, it hit me: This is what Israelis and American Jews have