Epstein Secrets

overnment. 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 awkward for Barak, who had promised during the campaign not to join a Netanyahu government. But in one of th

uine bond. Barak and Netanyahu "have a high regard for themselves and each other," explained David Makovsky, a former diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz. "They both see themselves as big-picture guys. They come out of the special forces culture and are far more similar than they are different." Of c

EFTA00630432 population in the West Bank, and jeopardizes Israel proper. The explosion of settlements, encouraged and subsidized by both Labor and Likud governments, has led to a large and established ethnocracy that thinks of itself as a permanent frontier. In 1980, twelve thousand Jews lived in th

from the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and simple emotion and fear. What American politicians don't seem to understand but any reader of Haaretz would know is that many leading EFTA00630430 Israelis, whose experience demonstrates both their deep commitment to Israel's security and their ex

ve to last for 25 years. Even after the Netanyahu cabinet voted to cut that number to 40 percent, it was still too high for the leaders of both the Likud and Labor parties, who denounced the decision as "reckless." Release of the report triggered demonstrations that blocked roads in central Tel Aviv,

of what might happen if Vinegar and his team get their way. "The Elah Valley will be turned into a great oil- shale production site," an article in Haaretz claimed. "Its vistas will likely be ruined, its soil and groundwater polluted by heavy metals, and its clean air will become a distant memory." Vi

ted. Rather than rising to the level of a strategic dialogue, the secularist constituency of Kadima confronted the religious constituencies of the Likud coalition and failed to create a government able to devise a platform for decisive action. This is Israel's crisis. It is not a sudden, life-threat

cial, dubbed the "Decision Maker," and universally believed to be Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Barak, said in a widely noted interview with Haaretz's Ani Shavit August 11: "Ostensibly the Americans could...say clearly that if by next spring the Iranians still have a nuclear program, they will d

ls featured Naomi Chazan, a left-of-center academic and former MK, and Zalman Shoval, a right-of-center former ambassador to the United States. The Likud was in power and Chazan urged American Jews to be more openly critical of the Israeli government to which Shoval responded that she didn't feel tha

erican Jewish and Israeli left who only believe in democracy when it suits them; that is, when Israel adopts their preferred policies. If you read Haaretz - an act of masochism for lovers of Israel - or listen to the likes of Peter Beinart and Roger Cohen, you might believe Israeli democracy is in cri

losing their jobs. Israel’s next election, the first since the Lebanon war, was due in July. Just as the trauma of the 1973 war had helped Begin end Likud’s three decades in opposition, the polls and the pundits were now suggesting that Shimon Peres might bring Labor back to power. There was no prospect

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

he left. Right after Yitzhak’s murder, I’d gone to see Zevulun Hammer, the leader of the National Religious Party. It had been part of both Labor and Likud governments ever since 1948, though not Rabin’s. The NRP, too, had been drifting steadily rightward. But it still basically subscribed the idea of a

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

losing their jobs. Israel's next election, the first since the Lebanon war, was due in July. Just as the trauma of the 1973 war had helped Begin end Likud's three decades in opposition, the polls and the pundits were now suggesting that Shimon Peres might bring Labor back to power. There was no prospect

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