Epstein Secrets

t” on the Golan Heights. Still, in my formal remarks at the dinner, I urged both sides to resume our effort to negotiate an Israeli-Syrian agreement. Sharaa’s response was, again, unencouraging. But I did notice, and take heart from, the fact that it was neither polemic nor overtly hostile towards Israel.

cluded two Israeli academics with personal ties to prominent Palestinians: 254 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011725 Yair Hirschfeld, and the historian and former Haaretz journalist Ron Pundak. Three PLO officials were there, led by Arafat’s closest economic aide, Abu Ala’a. Though both of the Israelis were friends of

as Tony Blair’s roving Mideast envoy, and then to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Assad said he would send Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al- Sharaa to meet me for initial talks in Washington in December, ahead of a full- scale, US-mediated attempt to negotiate peace at the start of the new year.

ciently sensitive to Arafat’s needs in the negotiating process. Typical of the argument was a broadside by the journalist and historian Tom Segev, in Haaretz, which accused me of an “incredible arrogance” which had “led to an historic mistake. Rather than continue on the Oslo road, Barak put it into his he

t" on the Golan Heights. Still, in my formal remarks at the dinner, I urged both sides to resume our effort to negotiate an Israeli-Syrian agreement. Sharaa's response was, again, unencouraging. But I did notice, and take heart from, the fact that it was neither polemic nor overtly hostile towards Israel.

cluded two Israeli academics with personal ties to prominent Palestinians: 254 HOUSE _OVERSIGHT_028102 Yair Hirschfeld, and the historian and former Haaretz journalist Ron Pundak. Three PLO officials were there, led by Arafat's closest economic aide, Abu Ala'a. Though both of the Israelis were friends of