Plans were made and then unmade last year to bring Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin together in a secret meeting, according to a report in Monday’s edition of Ha’aretz.
The efforts to bring the two men together — after both agreed in principle to meet — eventually foundered and were followed by Hussein’s public saber rattling against Israel.
The story was reported exclusively in Ha’aretz by its veteran military correspondent, Ze’ev Schiff.
The middlemen in the plans, according to Schiff, were Israeli-American businessman Azriel Einav, who is close to the Labor Party, and an American businessman described as “one of the leaders of the oil industry and the head of a major bank, a man of Arab origin.”
Rabin, according to the report, refused to confirm or deny the account, and Eitan Haber, at the time Rabin’s aide at the Defense Ministry, said, “Yes there was something like that,” but refused to elaborate.
The U.S. oil magnate met with Rabin secretly in a hotel in Philadelphia, using a service elevator to get to Rabin’s suite in order to avoid reporters.
Schiff writes that the American briefed the White House on the upcoming meeting, which was twice schedule for secret venues in Europe — but twice put off by the Iraqi side.
Rabin is said to have felt that every avenue that could lead to peace should be explored.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
