Epstein Secrets

ign team. This wasn't just because I wanted to guard against complacency. It was because, deep down, still I didn't trust the numbers. I retreated to Kochav Yair on Friday evening. On Saturday, two days before the election, I had a surprise visitor, someone I knew from Yitzhik Mordecai's team. He said he had a

VERSIGHT_028190 / BARAK / 57 A few days later, the "pre-endgame" around the summit began. Not in Washington or Jerusalem or Ramallah or Gaza, but in Kochav Yair. Nava and I still spent almost all our weekends there. We valued the quiet, or at least the slightly quieter, time away from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. S

. But I would need to make at least some dent in Bibi's hold on the Russian voters who had supported him by a wide margin in 1996. I focused first on Yisrael Ba'Aliyah, the main Russian immigrant political party. It had been set up by the iconic Soviet-era refusenik Natan Sharansky - or, as he was then kno

should give up on the chances of a peace agreement. After all, before Begin and Sadat went to Camp David in 1978, an almost equally tiny minority of Israelos had been in favor of withdrawing from the Sinai. Yet once they had seen the other side of the equation - full, formal peace with our most powerful ne

n to sit down and play on a sitting-room piano. I think the first time I got a sense that any of this might be having an impact was in a quote from a Yisrael Ba'Aliyah official in an Israeli newspaper. Though still stopping short of a formal endorsement, the official was quoted as saying: "A month ago, you

gn team. This wasn’t just because I wanted to guard against complacency. It was because, deep down, still I didn’t trust the numbers. I retreated to Kochav Yair on Friday evening. On Saturday, two days before the election, I had a surprise visitor, someone I knew from Yitzhik Mordecai’s team. He said he had a

ERSIGHT_011813 / BARAK / 57 A few days later, the “pre-endgame” around the summit began. Not in Washington or Jerusalem or Ramallah or Gaza, but in Kochav Yair. Nava and I still spent almost all our weekends there. We valued the quiet, or at least the slightly quieter, time away from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. S

should give up on the chances of a peace agreement. After all, before Begin and Sadat went to Camp David in 1978, an almost equally tiny minority of Israelos had been in favor of withdrawing from the Sinai. Yet once they had seen the other side of the equation — full, formal peace with our most powerful ne

. But I would need to make at least some dent in Bibi’s hold on the Russian voters who had supported him by a wide margin in 1996. I focused first on Yisrael Ba’Aliyah, the main Russian immigrant political party. It had been set up by the iconic Soviet-era refusenik Natan Sharansky — or, as he was then kno

iled in Israel at about 2 a.m. on January 18, 1991, almost exactly 24 hours after the Americans began their bombing raids over Baghdad. I was home in Kochav Yair. Like other Israelis, we’d set up a sealed shelter. Though I felt a bit silly doing it, having assured the government Saddam was vanishingly unlikely

hey were planning to kill, unless he was confident our soldiers could save them first. Underpinning it all was a dedication to fighting and defeating Isael’s enemies, yet a mindfulness that the real victory, if and when it was possible, would be genuine peace with our neighbors. He and I had had differen

iled in Israel at about 2 a.m. on January 18, 1991, almost exactly 24 hours after the Americans began their bombing raids over Baghdad. I was home in Kochav Yair. Like other Israelis, we'd set up a sealed shelter. Though I felt a bit silly doing it, having assured the government Saddam was vanishingly unlikely

hey were planning to kill, unless he was confident our soldiers could save them first. Underpinning it all was a dedication to fighting and defeating Isael's enemies, yet a mindfulness that the real victory, if and when it was possible, would be genuine peace with our neighbors. He and I had had differen