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attempt to help put us on the political offensive, after I was asked to record on of
Labor’s TV campaign messages. I knew what I wanted to say. I’d talked it over
with the small group of campaign experts Peres had asked me to assemble
alongside Ramon’s main team. Rather than ignore Bibi, I was going to use my
position as his former commander in Sayeret Matkal, someone who knew him
well, to explain why Peres should lead Israel.

“How many of us can really understand what it means to be a Prime Minister?”
I began. “As head of intelligence, and chief of staff, I have seen, close-up, what it
takes to be a Prime Minister. It is not a game. We’ve had good Prime Ministers:
Ben-Gurion, Peres, Rabin, Begin... Bibi, we know each other well, from the days
when you were an officer under my command. A young officer, and a good one.
Prime Minister is the most important and serious role in this country. Bibi, it’s not
yet you. We need an experienced leader, who will know how to guide us with
wisdom, strength and sensitivity. Shimon Peres is that man.”

Yet we were never going to be able to avoid engaging with Bibi altogether. The
face-to-face television debate between the two candidates was set for May 27, two
days before the election. By American standards, the format was fairly tame. No
direct exchanges were permitted, only a series of questions directed at each
candidate by a leading political journalist, Dan Margalit. Still, it would place
Shimon and Bibi side by side. We spent two days prepping Peres, with Avraham
Burg – an early Peace Now supporter, former Peres aide and Knesset member –
standing in for Bibi. Avraham played the role well, anticipating the lines of attack
Shimon would face. But as I watched, I worried that even he couldn’t replicate one
of Bibi’s key advantages. During his time at the embassy in Washington, and
especially as UN ambassador, Bibi had become a frequent presence on American
television interview shows. Always articulate, he was now also an experienced,
and completely comfortable, television performer. In our debate rehearsals, Peres
sounded well versed on all the issues. Yet I sensed his problem wasn’t going to be
the message, but the medium. He sounded a bit distant, unengaged, almost as if the
TV debate was something he knew he had to go through, but which he thought
slightly sullied the proper purpose of politics.

In the real debate, Shimon seemed to convey the sense that merely being in the
same studio with a pretender as raw and untested as Bibi was offensive. When each
of the candidates was given the opportunity at the end to ask a single question of
the other, Peres didn’t even bother. He did come over as the man with much more

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