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Yet the turnout was the lowest in Israeli history. Arik received fewer votes than I
had in 1999. Around half of the 1.8 million people who had supported me stayed at
home.

I conceded defeat after the first exit polls and said I would be stepping down as
head of the Labor Party. Still, since the election had been only for Prime Minister,
Labor remained the largest party in the Knesset. Mathematically, Arik might be
able to cobble together the required 61-seat majority with an assortment of smaller
parties. But without Labor as ballast, his government would be even more
precarious than mine. When I triggered the election, he’d let it be known that if he
won, he hoped to include Labor in his government, with me as his Defense
Minister. Even though I’d announced I was stepping aside, he phoned me the
morning after the election to make that argument again. He said Israel needed a
strong government, especially to confront the escalating violence. Having a person
with my background, whom he knew well and trusted, in the defense portfolio was
important. I didn’t say yes. Unfortunately, I failed to do what I should have done: I
didn’t immediately say no.

When the public learned about Sharon’s interest in a unity government, Labor
descended into bickering. Some of my former ministers, like Yossi Beilin and
Shlomo Ben-Ami, were against the idea of joining any Likud-led government.
They were especially disgusted by the prospect of doing so under Arik, the
architect of the 1982 Lebanon War. Most of the Labor’s central committee did
seem in favor of joining. But given the scale of my election defeat, many wanted
do so without me. For a few days, Arik kept phoning me. I did feel that the
substance of the arrangement he suggested made sense. But over that first week, I
realized that, understandably, he had little interest in addressing my policy
concerns. I decided to focus instead on ensuring a properly organized transition to
a new Labor party leader, and publicly confirmed that I would indeed be resigning.

Several weeks after Arik formed his government – including Labor, with Simon
Peres as one of four deputy prime ministers – he invited me to his office. He
wanted to ask my views on a specific security question. That took barely 15
minutes. But I raised another issue that I argued would have more far-reaching
implications. It was the idea of building the security fence along the West Bank.
I’d tried to make the case for doing so during the election campaign, and I’d lost
the election. “Now I’m turning to you. When I left office, 39 Israelis had been
killed in the terror attacks. Now, there are 70. When the number reaches 700,

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