| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011482)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011482" |
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| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
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| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| The problem for Israel, no matter who or what party is in government, is that |
| there are risks everywhere one looks, and they show every sign of getting more, |
| not less, serious. |
| The "Arab Spring" has morphed into an Islamic winter. National frontiers |
| that were put in place by British and French diplomats after the fall of the |
| Ottoman Empire are vanishing. Centuries-old conflicts between tribes and rival |
| religious communities have reignited. The old Cold War system of nations has |
| given way to a world without a single geopolitical centre of gravity. Perhaps |
| most seriously, Iran seems determined to get nuclear weapons, and, in my view, |
| may succeed in doing so. |
| Where Israel is concerned, relations with our indisputably most important |
| ally, the United States, are more strained than at any time in decades. |
| Diplomatic ties with Europe, our single largest trading partner, have been |
| growing steadily worse. And the only real certainty is that anyone who tells you |
| that they know absolutely where things are heading next is lying. Just ask Hosni |
| Mubarak, who, despite having nearly half-a-million soldiers and security |
| operatives at his disposal, was utterly blindsided, and very soon toppled and |
| imprisoned, by an uprising that began with a sudden show of popular anger in |
| Cairo's Tahrir Square. |
| Internally as well, Israel faces dangers. Chief among them is the alarming |
| erosion of the standards of civil discourse, amid the increasingly shrill, often |
| hateful, divisions between left and right, secular and religious, rich and poor |
| and, most seriously of all, Jews and Arabs. While we remain economically |
| successful, the fruits of our wealth are being ever more unevenly shared, and the |
| prospects for continued growth constrained by the lack of any visible prospect |
| of long-term peace. |
| Bibi Netanyahu, of course, knows all of this. Indeed, he has repeatedly |
| spoken of the multiple threats Israel faces, not only in somber terms, but at |
| times almost apocalyptically. |
| That works, politically. Politicians, not just in Israel but everywhere, know |
| that it is a lot easier to win elections on fear than on hope. |
| Yet my own prescription - learned, as this book recounts, from years on the |
| battlefield, then reinforced by my years in government - is that Israel must |
| resist being guided by either of those alternatives. Not fear, certainly. But |
| neither by simple, untempered hope. Though the stakes have become much |
| higher since my night flight back from Camp David nearly 15 years ago, our |
| 11 |
| HOUSE |
| _OVERSIGHT_011482 |
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|
