Datasets:
title: 'House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011777)'
source: 'House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)'
sourceUrl: https://www.justice.gov/epstein
date: '2026-01-01'
category: House Oversight
eftaNumber: HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011777
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/ BARAK / 20 before me, provoked more left-wing parties like Meretz to suggest that if I really wanted peace, I'd be ready to give away more, and more quickly. My position wasn't helped by the way I had come over in the media during my first months as Labor leader. A number of newspaper commentators wrote that while they found talking with me stimulating, I seemed to be operating in a world of my own, either unable or unwilling to give straight answers and a single, clear message. They were right about that. If asked a question, especially one which obviously involved an issus of nuance, my instinct was not to come up with a sound bite. It was, as best I could, to answer fully and accurately. The difficulties that could sometime cause hit home in an interview with a leading Israeli journalist in the spring of 1998. He asked how my life might have turned out if I'd been born and raised not as a kibbutznik, but a Palestinian. I answered: "At some stage, I would have entered one of the terror organizations and fought from there, and later would certainly have tried to influence from within the political system." I did hasten to add that I abhorred terrorists, describing their actions as "abominable... villainous." But that was lost in the political storm that followed. All I'd done was answer as honestly I could. What if I had been one of the Palestinian babies in Wadi Khawaret, but with the same mind and same impulses that had defined my life as an Israeli? I assumed that instead of becoming an Israeli soldier and politician, I would have become the closest thing to a Palestinian equivalent. Still, as even my brother-in-law, Doron Cohen, told me when he phoned a couple of hours later, it was not the most astute thing to say as a potential candidate for Prime Minister. None of this might have mattered if I'd been able to show I was bringing Labor nearer to defeating Bibi. But the only measure of progress that the media paid attention to was the opinion polls. Briefly, in late 1977, I did pull ahead, during the period leading up to Bibi's agreement to pull out of most of Hebron. But for much of 1998, I was running behind, and questions about my leadership surfaced publicly by the summer. The media commentators spoke of the need for a Labor "liftoff." Why, after a full year as leader, had I failed to deliver it? 306 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011777