/ BARAK / 53 suggested that Damascus confirm in writing that this part of the Golan was indeed Lebanese. The Syrians never responded. Equally predictable were the prophets of doom on the Israeli right, who said the Lebanon withdrawal would bury northern Israel in Katyushas and in blood. The reality was that in the half-dozen years following the pullout, the Israel-Lebanon border was quieter than at any time since the late 1960s. The main personal impact of the withdrawal, however, was to remind me of why I’d run for Prime Minister in the first place. Despite the challenges, and inevitable setbacks and frustrations, of my first year in office, I was in a position to act on what I believed to be critical issues for my country’s future. On Lebanon, I’d succeeded, mainly because the withdrawal was something we could do unilaterally. With Syria, I'd tried hard to get an agreement, only to find that Assad was unwilling, unable, or perhaps too ill to join in the search for a deal. I still recognized, however, that no issue was more important to Israel’s future than our conflict with the Palestinians. I knew that resolving it would be even tougher than the talks with the Syrians. But the only way to find out whether peace was possible was to try. So on the final day of May 2000, with the Lebanon pullout complete, I flew to Portugal — the site of a US-European summit — to see President Clinton. 339 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011810