Epstein Secrets

area. This meant that, for the first time, I would be in charge of one of Israel’s three regional military commands, and we were based on the edge of Jerusalem, with security responsibility for the West Bank. This was my first direct exposure to the combustible mix of restive Palestinians and the growing nu

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011754 votes: one for a party list and one for a directly elected Prime Minister. This would be a personal test, an opportunity for Shimon to build on the still-tenuous achievement of Oslo and finally secure the endorsement of the Israeli people. It seemed, for a while, I might even hav

had made Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres. Though the two men had grown to respect each another over the years, Rabin neither trusted, nor much liked, Shimon. In fact, though Peres’s support inside Labor had secured him the foreign ministry, Rabin had stipulated that all peace talks would remain under his

an assurance of confidentiality through Ne’eman. The first of about a half-dozen meetings came a few days later at the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem. Then, we shifted venue, meeting at a Mossad-owned villa north of Tel Aviv. I brought along Bougie Herzog, a bright young lawyer, and Labor Party mem

’d agree on a unity government. To my amusement, if not altogether to my surprise, I got word that Bibi was putting out separate political feelers to Shimon Peres. But before long, it became clear there was a specific political motivation behind his approaching me. It was indeed the peace process. But it

And while I did make a brief attempt to return as party leader later in the year, when it was clear I wasn’t going to win, I threw my support behind Shimon and against the other challenger, the longtime labor- union leader Amir Peretz, who was running on a platform to take Labor out of Sharon’s governmen

iting and wondering. I borrowed a Jeep from an army friend, with the idea that Nili and I could spend three or four days together, driving south from Jerusalem into the Negev and the Judean desert: to be alone, to talk, to see whether we actually had a future. I wrote her a note, took the bus to Tel Aviv whi

rces, it was critical to keep him in the picture. I told them all that we'd be working through the night, and that I had to be able to tell Motta and Shimon by the morning whether we really could mount a rescue mission. I still thought I'd end up having to tell them no. However difficult the obstacles we'

inly Ben-Zion and Bibi, would expect me to say. Not only was Yoni being mourned across Israel after Entebbe. He was being elevated - in the spirit of Shimon's words at the funeral -to something approaching sainthood. I did not want to detract from his evolving status as national hero, or his importance as

area. This meant that, for the first time, I would be in charge of one of Israel's three regional military commands, and we were based on the edge of Jerusalem, with security responsibility for the West Bank. This was my first direct exposure to the combustible mix of restive Palestinians and the growing num

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028131 votes: one for a party list and one for a directly elected Prime Minister. This would be a personal test, an opportunity for Shimon to build on the still-tenuous achievement of Oslo and finally secure the endorsement of the Israeli people. It seemed, for a while, I might even have

had made Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres. Though the two men had grown to respect each another over the years, Rabin neither trusted, nor much liked, Shimon. In fact, though Peres's support inside Labor had secured him the foreign ministry, Rabin had stipulated that all peace talks would remain under his

an assurance of confidentiality through Ne'eman. The first of about a half-dozen meetings came a few days later at the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem. Then, we shifted venue, meeting at a Mossad-owned villa north of Tel Aviv. I brought along Bougie Herzog, a bright young lawyer, and Labor Party mem

'd agree on a unity government. To my amusement, if not altogether to my surprise, I got word that Bibi was putting out separate political feelers to Shimon Peres. But before long, it became clear there was a specific political motivation behind his approaching me. It was indeed the peace process. But it

GHT_028163 / BARAK / 30 I'd tried not to pay too much attention to newspaper polls during the campaign, perhaps because even the "good" ones, to use Shimon's phrase, had me with just a narrow lead, with Yitzhik Mordechai's 10 or 11 percent still likely to prevent outright victory in the first round. But

iting and wondering. I borrowed a Jeep from an army friend, with the idea that Nili and I could spend three or four days together, driving south from Jerusalem into the Negev and the Judean desert: to be alone, to talk, to see whether we actually had a future. I wrote her a note, took the bus to Tel Aviv whi

inly Ben-Zion and Bibi, would expect me to say. Not only was Yoni being mourned across Israel after Entebbe. He was being elevated — in the spirit of Shimon’s words at the funeral —to something approaching sainthood. I did not want to detract from his evolving status as national hero, or his importance as

ministers convinced that would make things worse, I held off doing anything else until there seemed to me no choice, after Talansky gave evidence in Jerusalem’s District Court. Though he genuinely seemed not to have expected anything specific in return, he said he had given Olmert something like $150,000 in

I told a television interviewer that the government had every right to respond and was doing so effectively. Olmert phoned to thank me. When he, like Shimon, asked what I thought the government should do next, I was straightforward: “Do your best to bring things to an end as soon as you can.” I said that

ministers convinced that would make things worse, I held off doing anything else until there seemed to me no choice, after Talansky gave evidence in Jerusalem's District Court. Though he genuinely seemed not to have expected anything specific in return, he said he had given Olmert something like $150,000 in

I told a television interviewer that the government had every right to respond and was doing so effectively. Olmert phoned to thank me. When he, like Shimon, asked what I thought the government should do next, I was straightforward: "Do your best to bring things to an end as soon as you can." I said that

ng an Oxford companion to the Arab-Israeli conflict was first presented to me in 2005 by Markus Bouillon, who served for me both in my UN capacity in Jerusalem and at the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York. Nur Laiq laboriously and faithfully collected most of the relevant documents and contrib-

Casablanca Declaration. 30 November 1994 Establishment of the LACC. 10 December 1994 Official ceremony to present Nobel Peace Prize to Yizhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasir Arafat. 28 September 1995 — Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Oslo II. 31 October 1995 Beilin-