Ep. 14 - "The Buck Stops Here" – Yitzhak Rabin

If you remember, there was a national unity government at the time.

And it was the privilege of the foreign minister to nominate and for the prime minister to approve ambassadors in Washington and the UN.

So Paris, for instance, Shamil nominated Netanyahu to be ambassador to the UN and Paris agreed.

Then they could not agree on a new ambassador in Washington for several months.

And one day, I received a phone call saying that today there was another meeting between Paris and Shamir and Paris raised three names and the only one Shamir did not reject offhand was yours.

Okay, so great beginning.

I went to see both Paris and Shamir Shamir and decided that I shouldn't go because there was no point in going to Washington as the foreign minister's ambassador.

You really have to be the prime minister's ambassador in order to be a real ambassador in Washington.

And just to clarify, this is at the point when Shamir is prime minister and Paris is prime minister.

Is prime minister.

And I also consulted with Rabin who thought I should go and decided not to go and that was it for a few years.

Yossi Beilin then told me, you must be crazy.

I mean, this is once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

But then Rabin is elected prime minister in 92, and he invites me to meet him at home.

He was not great small talk.

And so I sit down and said, you know, my most important problem is I need to replace the chief negotiator with Syria, with Yossi Ben-Aaron.

that I'm looking for someone who, public figure who knows Syria.

Can you think of someone? That was awkward.

I can think of myself.

So I said, well, maybe I could think of two names.

He said, I'm only interested in one.

So I said, I'd be very happy to do it.

Oh, I'm so relieved.

And this is how it happened.

And then he told me, we'll talk about other things later.