Word: israel
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Both men were sick of belligerence. Says Barak: "People who experience fighting personally tend to calibrate more carefully what it means to be in a permanent state of war." The two soldiers agreed that peace accords, not the continued occupation of Arab land, were ultimately the best safeguard for Israel's security. In contrast to the ultra-vigilant Netanyahu, they shared a confidence in the country's strength. Barak once said Netanyahu saw Israel as a "carp among barracudas" while he saw it as a "benign killer whale...
...Gaza Strip to hunt down underground leaders; human-rights groups called them death squads. To quell terrorist attacks, he supported the 1992 deportation to Lebanon of 415 Palestinian Hamas militants, a harsh collective punishment that inflamed international opinion and was in time reversed. In 1993, as part of Israel's unavailing struggle to crush south Lebanon's Islamist militia Hizballah, he launched Operation Accountability, ruthlessly flattening Lebanese villages and killing 127 people...
...Israel's leader, Barak's biggest liability may be his lack of empathy--that Clintonesque ability to connect with others. He can be famously detached, recalls Doron Cohen, his brother-in-law, who served under Barak in the Sayeret Matkal. The first time he sent Cohen off on a cross-border raid, Barak accompanied the infiltrators to the frontier, but, says Cohen, "Ehud wouldn't tell me one personal word. I understood this was business. There was no room for gestures." Yet when the forces returned safely, Barak rushed over to Cohen to hug him. "He's so targeted...
...rights and aspirations. Says a close aide: "It's not about granting the Palestinians justice but about promoting our own interests." Even for Rabin, the dry, old combatant who could hardly be accused of excessive emotion, the negotiations weren't just about that. While he acted principally out of Israel's interest, Rabin had concluded that the peace process was also a moral imperative. But he was at the end of a long career, confident in his vision and prepared to take risks to achieve it. Cocky though his protege may be, Barak is just starting...
...probably a safe bet that Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and leader of the Russian immigrants in Israel, voted for Netanyahu, the man he credits with helping free him from the Soviet gulag. But he may have cost his buddy the race. The other Soviet Jews, 700,000 of whom have arrived in Israel in the past decade and who now represent 14% of the nation's electorate, swung victory to Barak. Veteran Israelis tend to stick rigidly in either the Labor or Likud camp, but "the Russians," as they are called, can go either way. This time just over...