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/ BARAK / 31 Nava and I voted, we attended an event for Labor supporters north of Tel Aviv, before flying to Beersheva to spend the final hours in the Negev. I’d arranged for Shlomo Ben-Ami to go to Kiryat Shmona in the north — emphasizing, as throughout the campaign, our determination to broaden our support beyond Labor’s heartland. The polls closed at 10 o’clock. I knew Bibi would be staring at the same Channel One newscast as I was, each of us ready to put the best spin on things, especially if there was no clear sign at this stage which one of us had won. But the exit poll findings came as a shock: Barak, of One Israel, 58.5 percent; Netanyahu, Likud, 41.5 percent. It was a landslide. The full impact hit me only when I got to the fifth-floor suite in the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv, our election-night headquarters. My three brothers, and Nava and our daughters, were waiting for me. Leah Rabin, too. Our eyes teared up as we embraced. My parents were by now too frail to come. But I’d promised to phone them, whatever happened. “We did it,” I told my father, who said mazaltov with a depth of feeling which had become rare as his health began to fail. My mother had always been a bit conflicted about my going into politics, despite her lifelong belief that the isswes of politics mattered, especially after Yitzhak had been cut down and killed for following the path on which I hoped to continue. Still, I could hear the pride, and relief, in her voice when I said: “Remember, ima. I did promise you that if I ran, at least I'd make sure to win.” When we’d finished speaking, Bibi called. He had conceded publicly as soon as the exit poll was out. He had also stunned the Likud crowd by immediately resigning as party leader. “Congratulations,” he said, sounding, more than anything, tired. “I accept that the voters have spoken.” I thanked him for taking the trouble to call. I said I appreciated the contribution he’d made to the country, and that we’d meet in the next few days to discuss how best to handle the political transition. “Thanks,” Bibi said. “And again, mazaltov.” By the time I got off the phone with Bibi, the TV was showing pictures of tens of thousands of people celebrating the results in the central Tel Aviv square, now renamed in Rabin’s memory, where he had been murdered nearly four years earlier. Before leaving to join them, I fielded a stream of calls: from friends, other Israeli party leaders and leaders from abroad, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, both of whom not only offered warm congratulations but said they looked forward to working with me as I tried to move Israel forward and to finish the work Yitzhak had begun. 317 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028165