Word: netanyahu
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...year-old was chosen to lead the Sayeret Matkal, and began a string of daredevil heroics. The next year, he and Netanyahu were among the special forces who donned maintenance workers' white overalls to storm a Sabena airplane hijacked en route to Tel Aviv airport. Long fascinated by mechanical devices, Barak skillfully picked a lock to open the airplane door. In 1973 he dressed as a woman to infiltrate Beirut with a unit that assassinated three leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was a commander of Israel's famous 1976 operation to rescue hostages at Uganda's Entebbe airport...
...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...
...months after retiring from the army, in 1995, Barak entered politics as Rabin's Interior Minister. When Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing zealot that November, Shimon Peres, the successor, quickly made Barak Foreign Minister. But the moment Peres lost to Netanyahu in the 1996 election, Barak jumped in to take over as party chief, rankling Labor leaders, who regarded the former general as an upstart...
...Unlike Netanyahu, Barak has said he has no objections to the creation of a Palestinian state. Still, he would impose limitations that are unacceptable to the Palestinians: annexing large chunks of the West Bank containing Jewish settlements; refusing to share Jerusalem. The Palestinians regard him dubiously. Senior officials recall that in the early days of peacemaking, he, unlike a number of other Israeli generals, declined to meet them. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has met Barak three times, has complained that he is "just a cold fish...
...confidence generated by a long and distinguished military and political career. Barak is only starting out on his political career, and he's unlikely to be prepared to take similar risks." He may be no Yitzhak Rabin, but with the peace process having ground to a halt on Netanyahu's watch, the Labor party leader's most important peacemaking credential may be simply that he's also not Bibi...