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I later worked out why he’d wanted to steer clear of the whole thing. Yediot had been planning the story for months. It had been ready to go with it earlier, when it was assumed I would be joining the government as early as April. The editors had held it to coincide with my arrival as a minister. That, I suppose, was simply what newspapers did. But it turned out that at least two influential Labor politicians had played a part in steering Yediot toward the story, and urging the newspaper to run with it: Haim Ramon, a veteran party figure and cabinet minister, though he’d quit the government the year before over the party’s failure to follow through on health-policy reform; and Shimon Shevess, one of Rabin’s top advisers. Ramon would later say that they hadn’t wanted to “kill Barak” as a new minister. “Just fire some bullets at this legs, so he’ll enter politics with a limp.” It was a way of cutting me down to size.

I suppose that was understandable. I was by no means the only former general to enter Israeli politics. Other chiefs-of-staff had gone on to play prominent roles in government: Dayan, Motta Gur and, of course, Rabin. But the fact that I was going directly into the cabinet, and so soon after leaving the army, was seen by the Israeli media – and a number of Labor politicians – as a reflection of my close relationship with Rabin. Some commentators had even been speculating I might eventually be a candidate to succeed him as party leader and Prime Minister.

It was true that Rabin had personally urged me to join the government, starting with a lighthearted remark only days after I’d ended my term as chief of staff. It was at a farewell organized by my staff. The event began with film clips from my years in the army, and a series of entertaining cameos from men I’d served with and led. Rabin spoke at the end. He said he’d recently been on an official visit to South Korea. He’d met the president, who told him he was the first Korean leader not to have been an army general. Rabin said he’d replied that he was the first Israeli Prime Minister who was a general. Then, smiling and looking straight at me, he added: “Nu, Ehud?”

I did want to join his government. But I had been in the army since the age of seventeen and was now in my early fifties. For my family’s sake, as well as my own, I had figured on taking a year or two to explore other things. Two options appealed to me especially. One was business. My brother-in-law, in addition to having a successful law practice, was involved in a number of business ventures, and we’d discussed areas we might jointly explore. But I had also received offers from think tanks in the United States.

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