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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 issues 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.

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