Leah Rabin, the late widow of assassinated premier Yitzhak Rabin, used words such as "nightmare," "monstrosity," "corrupt" and "liar" to describe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in letters she wrote over a decade ago that have recently been obtained by Haaretz.

In an election held the spring after Rabin's November 1995 death, Netanyahu narrowly beat his replacement, Shimon Peres, and served as prime minister from 1996-1999. Leah Rabin's letters, sent to an old friend, were written in the final months of Netanyahu's term, from fall 1998 through spring 1999. They are being published here for the first time in advance of the 14th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's death, which will be observed Thursday. Leah Rabin died in 2000.

In November 1998, about two weeks after the third anniversary of the assassination, Leah wrote: "I hope, pray, that the days of this government are numbered. Benjamin Netanyahu is a corrupt individual, a contentious liar who is ruining everything that is good about our society. He is breaking it to bits, and in the future, we will have to rebuild it all over."

In March 1999, she wrote in a similar vein: "We all want this nightmare to end, that this monstrosity called Netanyahu will get lost, because he exhausted our patience a long time ago."

In her letters, she expressed hope for a Labor victory in the 1999 election and sorrow over the establishment of a new party, the Center Party, on whose slate the Rabins' daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, was running for Knesset. Labor, led by Ehud Barak, did in fact win, and Rabin-Pelossof became a deputy minister in Barak's government. But in this year's election, the Rabins' son, Yuval Rabin, publicly supported Netanyahu in his rematch against Barak.

Leah also stressed in her letters that her husband had always opposed the settlements and supported giving up the West Bank.