HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011885.jpg

/ BARAK / 128 I issued a standing directive in the kirva that we should agree to anything Fayyad asked for, as long as there no security reason to say no. We ended up arranging a direct source of fuel supply to Jenin, on the northern edge of the West Bank, and built new terminals to handle it. We facilitated construction permits for a new industrial zone. For a conference of international economists and business people, we set up VIP treatment at Ben-Gurion Airport, and limousine transport to the conference venue. I believed that if Fayyad succeeded in what he was trying to accomplish, it would be a benefit not just for the Palestinians, but for Israel too. Bibi was agnostic on Fayyad’s efforts. Yet he recognized they did no harm. And in a way, my support for them was politically convenient. To the extent the international community, especially the Americans, appreciated our efforts to help the Palestinians, Bibi and others in the government could, and did, claim credit. When there were complaints from the right, Bibi could and did say: “It wasn’t me. It was Barak.” My part in our relations with the Americans was more politically delicate. As I continued to prod Bibi toward accepting a settlement freeze during the summer and autumn of 2009, my de facto role became to help smooth over the increasingly rough edges in our ties with the Obama administration. I knew key figures from earlier incarnations in their public lives and mine: Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, who had been President George H. W. Bush’s deputy security adviser 1n the first Iraq war and then head of the CIA; and Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State. During a series of early trips to the US as Defense Minister, I met Gates, Hillary and other senior figures in the administration both formally and informally. In part because they were aware I favored agreeing to a settlement freeze, they clearly found it a lot easier to talk to me than to Bibi. On one visit, to my regret and Bibi’s evident frustration once I’d got home, the press highlighted this dramatic difference in mood. Emerging from talks with me at the State Department, Hillary told reporters that our talks had gone “wonderfully.” She added: “As longtime friends do, much was said. And much didn’t need to be said.” Still, I was careful to avoid any explicit criticism of Bibi in my meetings in the US. I would point out the domestic political pressures on him in deciding how to proceed. And in any case, the Americans knew that no matter what I might say to them, it was Bibi’s actions that ultimately mattered. He, not I, was Prime Minister. I was as surprised as they were when he finally announced a settlement freeze in November 2009. As with nearly everything else he did regarding the peace 414 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011885