Thirteen Days in September

by Lawrence Wright

  “Excuse me,” Kamel said in a panic; then he rushed out of the room.

  When he got back to his cabin, everyone was waiting to hear what the president had wanted. “Nothing important,” Kamel said. Then he drew aside a couple of trusted friends. They wandered into the woods until they came to the stump of an enormous tree. Kamel said that he had finally given up. The real problem of Camp David was not Begin’s intransigence or America’s partisan attitude toward Israel. The problem was Sadat. He was in thrall to Carter, who had surrendered entirely to the Israeli demands. Kamel could no longer be party to an agreement that he was unable to influence in any fashion. He was going to resign.

  His colleagues suggested that he think about it overnight, then go see Sadat the next morning. He could point out to the president the dangers in signing any agreement that did not meet the minimum goals the delegates had agreed upon. If Sadat failed to listen, Kamel could resign at that time, knowing he had done everything he could.

  “Yes, I’ll do it,” Kamel said.

  BEGIN WAS APPROACHING the moment of truth. Carter had decided to end the conference on Sunday, two days hence, and the following day the president would be speaking to Congress. The story he was going to tell was that the summit failed because of Begin.

  The Israelis met in a crisis session to discuss how to end the summit to their best advantage. Weizman implored Begin to make some effort to compromise. There was going to be no way to disguise the fact that Israel had chosen to keep its settlements in Sinai rather than make peace with Egypt. Dayan agreed that Israel could not afford to be the cause of the failure of the talks. It wasn’t just a question of peace with Egypt; Israel’s relationship with the U.S. was also at risk. Some concession had to be offered. But Begin could not be moved.

  Perhaps he had in mind the pledge he had made that when he left office he would retire to a Sinai community settled by his old comrades in Betar. His devotion to the settlements was not theological—Sinai was not necessarily part of the compact that God made with the Jews, as far as Begin was concerned. Mondale, whom the Israelis saw as a far more sympathetic figure than Carter, spent hours with Begin appealing to his image of himself as a historic figure, but to little avail. For Begin, the question of Sinai was existential. The peninsula was the buffer that lay between Israel and its historic enemy. No matter what paper was signed, it would never replace 130 miles of mountains and sand standing between Israel and the Suez. Sinai had been the margin of salvation in the Yom Kippur War. The settlements were the vital outposts that would slow the enemy’s advance. History had been cruel when Jews put their trust in others.

  The crisis meeting among the Israelis ended with no solution. Afterward, General Avraham Tamir, the Israeli military adviser at Camp David, quietly approached Weizman with a plan to contact General Ariel Sharon, the chief architect of Israel’s settlement program. Begin was a great admirer of the bold and ruthless warrior; moreover, Sharon’s Polish grandmother had been the midwife at Menachem Begin’s birth. No one was more hawkish than Sharon. If he of all people could be convinced that peace with Egypt was more important than the Sinai settlements, perhaps he could influence Begin. It was a desperation move, but Weizman agreed. A few hours later, Begin called his delegation together again. Deeply moved, he told them that Sharon had phoned him to say that if the settlements were the last remaining obstacle to a peace agreement, “I see no military objection to their evacuation.” Sharon’s blessing meant that Begin now had the political cover to make the decision to compromise, but to the frustration of the Israeli delegates he still chose not to.

  “Evacuation of the settlements is essential if we want peace,” Weizman implored.

  “I heard you!” Begin snapped.

  In the middle of this heated discussion, a message arrived: “President Carter requests that Dayan and Barak come and see him for a further talk.” Weizman went along. Carter knew that these men were his best hope to influence Begin. He made a final plea. The gap between the Israelis and the Egyptians wasn’t wide, he said; couldn’t the Israelis come up with something to salvage the talks—even something symbolic, like a Jordanian flag on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem? A few symbolic gestures could make a difference. So much of the deadlock had to do with words, not substance. Surely the Israelis could find a way of phrasing the agreement that Begin would find acceptable.

  There was one nonnegotiable concession that Carter demanded: “You must agree to evacuate the Sinai settlements to achieve a peace treaty.”

  “Such a thing cannot be agreed upon here,” Dayan said. “It can’t be done without the consent of the whole cabinet and Knesset.”

  That wasn’t the same as saying it couldn’t be done at all.

  ROSALYNN SPENT another whole day in Washington, scarcely able to concentrate on anything except the dismal prospect for the summit that she had left behind. When the helicopter ferried her back to Camp David that evening, however, she found that the mood among the Americans had once again completely swung around. “We’re closer than we’ve ever been,” Vance assured her. Sadat had proved willing to stick it out, and the Israelis were worried that the U.S. and Egypt would sign an agreement without them, so they were finally showing some flexibility. “I think each side [has] decided it could happen,” Vance told Rosalynn.

  There seemed to be no emotions available at Camp David other than total gloom and utter exhilaration. Rosalynn found Carter and Mondale in Sadat’s cabin drinking mint tea and watching the Muhammad Ali–Leon Spinks boxing match for the heavyweight championship. Sadat was a great admirer of Ali’s, and after the fight, Carter placed a call to Ali to congratulate him on his victory, but Ali didn’t call back until one thirty a.m., after Sadat had already retired.

  William Quandt, Brzezinski’s colleague on the National Security Council, was in his cabin writing the speech that Carter would give on Monday if the talks collapsed. The president would outline the progress that had been made and the many concessions that Sadat had been willing to offer. Only two issues blocked the agreement, the speech would state: Begin’s refusal to give up the settlements in Sinai and his refusal to accept UN Resolution 242 as the basis for the final negotiations on the status of the West Bank and Gaza. Carter would then make a direct appeal to the Israeli people to repudiate their leadership. The political fallout would be unimaginable.

  Meantime, the Israeli delegation was celebrating its second Shabbat at Camp David. This time, there were no guests at dinner. The Israeli Philharmonic expedition was canceled. The delegates were emotionally wrung out, except for Begin, who seemed determined to lift everyone’s spirits. He insisted that they sing songs from the underground, but the only other person who knew the words was Yechiel Kadishai. The two of them sang one tune after another as the demoralized delegates waited for the dinner to end.

  Mohamed Kamel went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He smoked continuously as his mind swirled with fears and misgivings. Here he was, thousands of miles from home, trapped in a forest on a mountaintop in Maryland—in what was in fact a military compound, once you stripped away the trees—forced to be a member of a delegation that had no influence on Sadat’s decision but which would nonetheless be held accountable for the disaster that was bound to follow. In his imagined crystal ball, the agreement that the Americans were urging upon them would bring on a new era of chaos in the Arab world. Egypt would be set adrift from its neighbors, while Israel would be regnant, unconstrained by the threat of Arab reprisals. He envisioned Israel as a beast waiting to devour the confused and weakened Arabs, plundering their wealth and massacring anyone standing in its way.

  What was going to happen to him if he resigned? Egypt is a very intimate country, but it could be cruel to people in disfavor. Kamel was an ambitious man. He already held one of the highest posts available; it wasn’t beyond possibility that the office of the presidency would be open to him one day—if he encouraged Sadat in desperate quest to salvage his peace overture. So why not close his eyes and go a
long, rather than throw away his career and who knew what else?

  When he finally did sleep, he was beset by nightmares. The CIA and Mossad, the Israeli spy organization, captured him. They tortured and killed him and made it look like an accident. In another dream he was stranded at Camp David after everyone left, without his passport, unable to prove who he was.

  And who was that? In his half sleep, he thought about his father, the judge, who died when Mohamed was only nineteen—a third-year law student who was in prison at the time. His father’s words came flooding in upon him: “Never sell or humiliate yourself, my son.… You must always be brave and say what you feel, doing only what your conscience and honor approve.”

  That night Kamel resolved that he would never be accused of being a coward who had held his tongue at the moment that Egypt faced its great calamity. “Tomorrow,” he told himself, “I shall speak quietly, firmly, and in all honesty to the president. Maybe he will come to his senses and return to the path of righteousness. Otherwise, well, what will be will be: I have met my obligations, relieved my conscience and obeyed my father’s recommendation.… I put my trust in God, who is unfailing.”

  Day Twelve

  Menachem Begin on the porch of Birch Lodge

  IN THE MORNING, Carter went for another walk with Sadat, then walked over to Holly Lodge, where the American and Israeli teams were conferring. Dayan said that he was personally willing to let the settlers leave Sinai after twenty years but warned that Begin would never accept any deadline that committed to their departure. As for the West Bank, Dayan would agree to no new settlements but not to withdrawal of existing ones. He appealed to Carter to meet with Begin that evening, at the end of Shabbat, since the prime minister was beginning to feel a little left out of the negotiating process. It was true that Carter was avoiding him.

  At nine a.m., Brzezinski, Mondale, and Vance joined Carter to go over the latest proposal. Rosalynn sat in. Vance had met with the Israelis the evening before. He reported that Begin was upset by some of the latest changes, and that the American team then spent most of the night preparing a new draft with somewhat different language. The process had become one of laboriously shaving down the differences through increasingly subtle word choices. Begin still had a problem with the phrase “legitimate rights of the Palestinian People.” Was there such a thing as illegitimate rights? he argued. Moreover, Jews were also Palestinians. Begin preferred the phrase “Arabs of the Judea and Samaria districts.” He would be willing to accept the phrase “people of Palestine” rather than “Palestinian People.” The lowercased “p” emphasized the distinction that he wished to make: they were Arab inhabitants within the Land of Israel, and not a people living in their own nation.

  Some words had such a charge at Camp David that they couldn’t be used without evoking strong reactions, especially from Begin. When Carter had described the prime minister’s autonomy plan as a “subterfuge,” Begin was enraged, and he continued to bring it up as if it were a personal insult. Similarly, when Brzezinski told Begin that the Arabs considered Israel to be a colonialist enterprise, Begin had taken umbrage, as if that were Brzezinski’s personal opinion. In meetings with the Americans, Begin would sarcastically repeat, “We are colonialists, and we are trying to plan subterfuges.” Of course, if anyone used the term “that man,” it was immediately understood to be a reference to Sadat’s inability to say Begin’s name aloud.

  KAMEL FAILED to appear at breakfast. Two members went to check on him and found him still sleeping. He said he had been smoking cigarettes all night and didn’t feel like eating. One of his young assistants insisted on bringing him a tray of fruit and cheese sandwiches. At eleven, Kamel finally went to Sadat’s cabin. “I want to have a talk with you, not as a foreign minister speaking to the president of the Republic, but as a friend and younger brother,” he said.

  “Tell me what you have to say straight out,” Sadat said.

  Kamel replied that he had read Carter’s latest draft of the “Framework for Peace.” It wasn’t what Sadat sought to accomplish when he went to Jerusalem. It certainly wasn’t comprehensive. “The American project leads to a separate peace between Egypt and Israel which would be completely independent of what might happen in the West Bank and Gaza,” Kamel said. Israel would have peace with Egypt but then would be free to impose its schemes for annexing the occupied territories. “All Israel needs is a few years in order to bring the land under its control,” he warned. “You know how all-powerful Israeli propaganda is.” He said that the Israelis would enlist the treaty to justify their occupation. He begged Sadat not to sign such a “ruinous document,” which would surely turn Egypt’s Arab allies against them.

  “You know nothing about the Arabs,” Sadat responded. “If they are left to themselves, they will never solve the problems, and Israeli occupation will be perpetuated. Israel will end by engulfing the occupied Arab territories, with the Arabs not lifting a finger to stop them, contenting themselves with bluster and empty slogans, as they have done from the very beginning.”

  “What you say is not entirely true,” Kamel said. The Arabs stood behind Sadat during the 1973 war, he pointed out. “Now that American impotence and its abandonment of the search for a just and comprehensive peace is clear, do you not see that you should go back to the Arabs again?” Kamel promised that the Arab nations were only waiting for a sign from Sadat, whereupon “the differences will be dissipated like a summer cloud.”

  But the agreement that Carter was proposing gives the Palestinians autonomy, Sadat protested. It abolishes the Israeli military government in the West Bank and Gaza. “Carter has assured me that he feels a moral obligation to do something for the Palestinians, and that he will be in a position to do this when he is reelected,” Sadat said. Moreover, Kamel failed to appreciate the reality of Egypt’s predicament. The economy was horrible and the public utilities were near collapse. Egypt needed peace in order to turn all its attention and resources to development. It could only help the Palestinians if Egypt was strong. An Egypt weakened by endless conflict could do no one any good.

  “If you consider that our internal conditions are such that we are compelled to reach an immediate interim agreement, then announce that openly,” Kamel said. It would at least be a way of explaining Egypt’s capitulation.

  Oh, how the Soviets and the Arab naysayers would gloat over such a statement, Sadat said. “I know what I’m doing and will go through with my initiative to the very end.”

  “Very well, then,” Kamel said. “Please accept my resignation.”

  Sadat was not surprised. He asked Kamel to keep his decision a secret until they were back in Egypt. “Calm down and relax,” Sadat advised him. “Everything will come all right in the end.”

  “HOW DOES the president feel?” Mondale asked Rosalynn when he arrived in the afternoon to meet with Carter and Vance. Rosalynn said that everything seemed to be all right for the moment, but it couldn’t be counted on to last. “Good heavens, this is nerve-racking,” Mondale said. He had been back and forth to Washington and had not really kept up with the emotional oscillations.

  Indeed, when the meeting broke up, Jimmy despondently told Rosalynn he was skeptical that either side would accept the new proposal. It was too much for Rosalynn. She went off looking for a tennis partner. She thought she was going to be sick if she stayed in the cabin another moment.

  Sadat arrived with Baz to review the new language about the settlements. Carter began by reviewing what Sadat stood to lose if the summit failed: the possibility of having Israel accept Resolution 242 in all its parts; the end of Israeli military occupation; the acceptance of the principle of withdrawal in the West Bank and Sinai; autonomy for the Palestinians for five years, after which there would be a permanent resolution of the Palestinian issue; and full peace with Israel, including the economic benefits and international acclaim that would come with that.

  Sadat agreed to accept the very limited language in the draft about Jerusalem, which C
arter decided was too hot a topic to resolve at Camp David. In return, Carter promised that there would be an exchange of letters in which each side stated its position. The U.S. would reconfirm its long-standing policy that East Jerusalem was part of the occupied territory of the West Bank. Sadat stipulated that the Wailing Wall would always be exclusively Jewish.

  There was one sticking point, however. The previous draft had stated that the parties would negotiate “the time of the withdrawal.” Begin had demanded “the time of” stricken, because he wouldn’t commit to a time when the Israelis would withdraw. Sadat insisted that he was willing to negotiate the time of the withdrawal, but not if there was going to be a withdrawal. There was no moving him on this.

  Vance took the new draft to the Israelis. The question of UN Resolution 242 was still a land mine. Dayan floated the notion that withdrawal from territories occupied by war only applied to states, and since the Palestinians didn’t have one, the resolution had no place in the discussion.

  The subject of the Palestinians had scarcely been talked about at all. The issue had been parked while the discussion focused on Sinai. Now the clock was running out. Carter had only twenty-four hours left.

  Vance and Barak came up with the idea of having two sets of negotiations over the West Bank and Gaza: one between Israel and Jordan, and the other between Israel and the Palestinians. The paragraph would state that the principles of Resolution 242 applied to “the negotiations.” What that actually meant would be left up in the air. Egypt and the U.S. could say that it referred to the negotiations with the Palestinians, but Israel could claim that it only included negotiations with Jordan, where the matter of the boundaries would not be an issue, since Begin rejected the idea that Jordan had any valid claim to the West Bank. The Americans rewrote the draft accordingly, although once again adding the phrase that the negotiations should address the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian People.” It would still have to be sold to Begin. And for him, the Palestinians posed a daunting dilemma—and the blackest mark in his terrorist career.