(October 30, 2025)

Barak felt enormous urgency to secure a face-to-face meeting with Putin as soon as possible, before the conflict escalated further. Besides Epstein, he also requested comments from Ron Dermer, close confidante to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was preparing to become Israel’s next ambassador to the U.S. Barak wrote to Dermer, “i don’t care how you’ve corrected it. yours will be always better in clarity and conciseness than mine. try earlier. i don’t want events to overwhelm us.” Dermer swiftly returned a refined copy with more fluent English.

As was typical of Epstein’s style, he sent back a rough cut riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Unlike Dermer’s narrower cut, Epstein significantly revised Barak’s piece, and added a new title: “Wait Until It’s Too Late.”