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.

se demagoguery and violence to get their way. Peres’s first order of business was to put in place a new cabinet. He did, briefly, consider giving up the Defense Ministry and putting me there. But instead, he made me Foreign Minister. Like Rabin before him, Shimon stipulated that he, as Prime Minister, would retain aut

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.

The gifted lawyer, longtime Likudnik and strong backer of the Gaza plan, Tzipi Livni, was Foreign Minister. Amir Peretz, as head of Labor, was given the Defense Ministry. But without Sharon himself at the helm, the government was now about to face a military crisis with virtually no military experience around the cabi

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.

use demagoguery and violence to get their way. Peres's first order of business was to put in place a new cabinet. He did, briefly, consider giving up the Defense Ministry and putting me there. But instead, he made me Foreign Minister. Like Rabin before him, Shimon stipulated that he, as Prime Minister, would retain aut

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.

The gifted lawyer, longtime Likudnik and strong backer of the Gaza plan, Tzipi Livni, was Foreign Minister. Amir Peretz, as head of Labor, was given the Defense Ministry. But without Sharon himself at the helm, the government was now about to face a military crisis with virtually no military experience around the cabi