Allon Is Alone with His Plan
Many Israelis saw no reason to rule over the Palestinians—a people hostile toward their administration and determined to win some form of self-determination. But others disagreed; they wanted the territories annexed to Israel.
This second option would have meant incorporating more than a million Palestinians into Israel and giving them full rights as citizens, which would have made them a powerful political minority. And given their higher birth rate, it was likely that the Palestinians would actually become the majority. Opponents of annexation argued that Israel would either have to deny the Palestinians rights—in which case, it would cease to be a democracy—or grant them equal rights and eventually cease to be a Jewish state.
Palestinians to Jordan?
Israelis on the political right held out hope for an agreement with Jordan that would give King Hussein control over parts of the territories and shift the Palestinian demographic problem to his kingdom. This was the preferred solution, which was articulated by one of Israel’s most respected military leaders, Yigal Allon. The Allon Plan called for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with minor modifications and a continued presence in strategically vital areas, such as the high ground along the Jordanian border. Jerusalem, under this plan, would remain Israel’s undivided capital (one element that all Israelis agreed on).
Although a tiny minority at the time advocated negotiations with the PLO, the vast majority of Israelis believed that they could not negotiate with terrorists committed to their destruction. Israeli officials held out hope that a group of moderate Palestinian leaders would emerge in the West Bank and Gaza who would be willing to reach an agreement. The problem was the PLO would not allow any such leadership to emerge. Anyone who cooperated with the Israelis was considered a collaborator and in constant danger of being killed by the PLO.
Resisting Arafat
Even though the PLO itself remained fractured, its leaders, especially Yasser Arafat, were considered (by virtually everyone but the Israelis and Americans) to be the spokesmen for the Palestinians inside and outside the territories. Most countries understood this and were willing to work with Arafat, and the Europeans, especially, pressured Israel to accept him as a negotiating partner.
For his part, Arafat refused to express any willingness to abandon the goal of destroying Israel or using terror to accomplish his objective. This made it impossible for any mainstream Israeli politician to advocate talks with Arafat (though many leftists met with him and other PLO officials).
Carter’s Messianism
When President Jimmy Carter came into office in 1977, the time was ripe for a new peace initiative, and, like his predecessors, the new president was quick to offer one.
Jimmy Carter, a deeply religious man, felt a strong connection to the Holy Land and believed he could do what all others had failed to accomplish—bring peace to the Middle East. Unlike Kissinger, who viewed peacemaking through the prism of broader U.S. foreign policy objectives, particularly vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, Carter was more interested in the idealistic biblical notion of beating swords into plowshares.
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Tut Tut!
For years, Great Britain tried to persuade Israel to negotiate with the PLO. This was particularly ironic given that the British refused to negotiate with the IRA over Irish affairs for similar reasons. With equal difficulty and trepidation, both Britain and Israel eventually changed their policies. Israel was the first to do so.
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For Kissinger, Egypt was the lynchpin to peace in the region. As the largest and most powerful Arab country, he understood that removing the Egyptians from the Rejectionist Front would cripple the radicals’ ability to threaten Israel. Kissinger was interested in a comprehensive peace and pursued a diplomatic strategy aimed at bringing other Arabs to the negotiating table. But he was willing to seek progress on one front at a time. Carter, on the other hand, didn’t believe the Arab-Israeli conflict could be solved piecemeal; he wanted to get the whole enchilada.
Immediately after taking office, Carter became actively involved in Middle East politics and was quickly mired in a series of controversies over statements and misstatements by him and his advisors. This produced tension between the new president and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who interpreted the various remarks as a return to the Rogers Plan—or worse (see Chapter 15). It also became clear that Carter hoped to bring the PLO into the peace process—an idea that was anathema to the Israelis.
The main vehicle for fulfilling Carter’s utopian vision of the Middle East was to be a conference in Geneva in which all the parties to the Arab-Israeli dispute would sit down and negotiate an agreement. The Israelis opposed this internationalization of the negotiating process because they believed the Arabs would gang up on them and that none of the Arab leaders would risk looking less tough than the others by offering concessions to Israel. Consequently, Rabin preferred direct talks with the individual parties.
Checks Bounce Rabin
Carter’s plans were complicated by an unexpected turn of events in Israel. A domestic political crisis led Rabin to move the 1977 elections that were originally scheduled for November to May. Rabin’s Labor Party had easily won every election since the birth of the state, so the only question seemed to be whether Rabin could retain control of the party after he was challenged by Shimon Peres. Rabin was reelected party leader by only 41 votes.
Three weeks later, an Israeli newspaper reported that Rabin’s wife Leah had kept a secret bank account in Washington, D.C., after her husband’s tour as ambassador ended. Rabin admitted this was a violation of Israeli currency laws, but claimed the amount was a paltry $2,000. Shortly thereafter, the Rabins were found to have a second Washington account with $23,000 deposited. Although hardly a hidden fortune, the issue became a scandal that forced Rabin’s resignation.
The combination of the scandal, the bitterness of the Rabin-Peres rivalry, the lingering trauma from the Yom Kippur War, and the weakness of the Israeli economy all contributed to the election of Menachem Begin as prime minister.
Begin’s In
Begin was the man who had led the Irgun during the revolt against the British (see Chapter 8) and whom Ben-Gurion had seen as a threat to the newborn state. After independence, Begin had formed a political party and been a member of the loyal opposition, staking out hard-line positions but showing a degree of practical flexibility that allowed him to serve in Labor-led governments.
When it came to the question of peace with Israel’s neighbors, Begin was all for it, provided it did not require any withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, which was part of the land that had historically been part of Israel. Concerning the grievances of the Palestinians, Begin’s position was that they had a state of their own called Jordan, where they already comprised a majority of the population and therefore did not need a second state.
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Hieroglyphics
Judea and Samaria have long been used to refer to the regions west of the Jordan River. Since Begin’s time, at least, however, these geographic references have acquired political meaning. People who refer to Judea and Samaria in political debate usually believe these territories are part of Israel and should remain so. Those who refer to the region simply as the West Bank tend to take the opposite view or believe in compromise.
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Because of his view that Jews were entitled to live anywhere in their homeland, Begin began a program of building new communities throughout Judea and Samaria. The Labor Party had previously restricted most of its building to areas viewed as strategically important and usually far from Arab population centers. Begin, however, hoped to establish so many Jewish communities in the West Bank, even in predominantly Palestinian areas, that it would be impossible to carve out a Palestinian state. This was to be a constant irritant to the Carter administration, which maintained the creation of settlements posed an obstacle to peace—a view that was difficult to defend given tha
t the Arab states had shown no inclination to make peace when Jordan occupied the West Bank and no settlements existed.
Jimmy Looks Toward Switzerland
Carter remained determined to bring all the parties together for a peace conference in Geneva. Begin succumbed to American pressure and agreed to attend provided that the Palestinian representatives were not known members of the PLO and that after an initial meeting among all the parties, Israel would hold separate bilateral negotiations with each Arab state.
The key obstacle to convening the conference now became the Syrians. Like diplomats meeting Assad before and after, Jimmy Carter met with Syrian president Hafez Assad and found him “very constructive,” “somewhat flexible,” and “willing to cooperate.”
The Syrians insisted that all Arab parties negotiate as one in any talks at Geneva. This ensured that the most extreme among them, namely the Syrians and Palestinians, would have a chance to veto any decision made. Israel would not accept such a condition, and, ultimately, Sadat did not want his hands tied by Assad.
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Sage Sayings
This was the man who would soon sabotage the Geneva peace talks…and who would…do everything possible to prevent the Camp David Accords from being fulfilled.
—Jimmy Carter’s diary entry describing his meeting with Assad
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Courting Sadat
When Begin was elected, he surprised everyone by appointing Moshe Dayan as foreign minister. Dayan had been a member of the Labor Party until declaring himself an independent. He was therefore distrusted by his former colleagues, considered damaged goods by most of Begin’s associates, and discredited in the eyes of the public because of his role in the Yom Kippur War. Begin, however, saw him as a pragmatist who shared his hawkish views regarding the West Bank.
Together, Begin and Dayan sought a deal with Sadat whereby they would exchange part of the Sinai for peace with Egypt. The Israelis also hoped Sadat wouldn’t make a fuss about the Palestinians and the West Bank.
Sadat Goes to Jerusalem
While Carter was trying to get the Syrians to Geneva, Sadat grew increasingly impatient. Through a variety of secret contacts—many conducted in Morocco with the assistance of King Hassan—the Israelis conveyed to him the message that they were prepared to trade land for peace. Sadat decided to make a bold gesture and announced to the Egyptian parliament on November 9 that he was prepared to go to Jerusalem and speak directly to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, if that would help bring peace.
The Israelis were initially skeptical, but they quickly realized this was an opportunity they could not pass up. Begin formally invited Sadat to visit. Sadat accepted, and on November 19, 1977, he arrived in Jerusalem and addressed the Knesset.
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Mysteries of the Desert
A key to building trust between Begin and Sadat was the Israeli decision to pass on intelligence to Sadat that the Mossad (the Israeli government’s intelligence agency) had collected of an assassination plot against Sadat. The killers were Palestinians backed by Libya. Based on the Israeli information, Sadat had all the conspirators arrested and launched an air strike against Libyan targets. Sadat was indeed grateful, and the incident helped pave the way for the peace negotiations.
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It is difficult to understate the impact of Sadat’s gesture. By taking a short plane ride across the desert, he had achieved a remarkable psychological breakthrough that could not have been accomplished with regular diplomacy. For the first time, Israelis saw an Arab leader extend his hand in friendship—and in their capital.
Israel also saw Sadat’s visit as an opportunity to split its most formidable enemy from the rest of the Arab world. But Sadat’s speech did not give them any comfort on that score. His demands did not reflect any softening of Egypt’s position that Israel withdraw from all the territories it captured in 1967, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and to redress the grievances of the Palestinians. He insisted that he would not agree to any separate peace, dashing Israeli hopes.
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Sage Sayings
I have come to you so that together we should build a durable peace based on justice to avoid the shedding of one single drop of blood by both sides. It is for this reason that I have proclaimed my readiness to go to the ends of the earth.
—Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s speech to the Knesset
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Instead of welcoming Sadat’s bold move, the Carter administration was initially upset that it had not played a role in the Egyptian leader’s decisions. U.S. officials were also frustrated by the fact that their efforts to convene a Geneva conference had now been overtaken by events out of their control.
Begin Plants a Seed in Palestine
Begin devised a plan whereby Israel would recognize Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai in exchange for a peace treaty. He wanted, however, to retain control over Israeli settlements and military installations in the desert near the Israeli border, as well as the town of Sharm El Sheikh, which borders the Red Sea and was vital to the prevention of a repetition of past blockades of the Straits of Tiran.
The most surprising element of Begin’s plan was his proposal to allow the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip autonomy. It would be a degree of self-rule falling far short of independence, but it would offer, for the first time, the prospect of a negotiated settlement to the Palestinian problem.
What made even this somewhat limited concession so extraordinary was that it reflected a retreat from the “Greater Israel” position that had been at the core of the Nationalist camps’ ideology since the time of Jabotinsky (see Chapter 6). The plan also appeared to end Israel’s threat to annex the entire West Bank.
Begin met Sadat in Ismailia, Egypt, on Christmas Day in 1977, but the meeting did not produce any agreement. The Egyptian president was holding out for more territory and wanted to give less than full peace in return. Carter increasingly appeared to side with the Egyptians, expressing the view that Israel would have to withdraw from the occupied territories with only minor adjustments for security reasons. He rejected Begin’s contention that Resolution 242 (see Chapter 15) did not apply to the West Bank and was convinced that Israel’s settlement policy was an obstacle to peace.
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Hieroglyphics
The Israeli Labor Party was formed by the union of three left-of-center, socialist parties. Until 1977, Labor (under different names) had held power since independence and had dominated Jewish public and political life. Since 1977, the Likud Party has emerged as a political power. Its roots are traced back to Jabotinsky and it is associated with right-of-center, nationalist, free-market policies.
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Those Pesky Settlements
“Settlements” are actually towns and villages where Jews have gone to live since the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. In many cases, flourishing Jewish communities had lived in the same area for thousands of years.
Strategic concerns led both Labor and Likud governments to establish settlements. The objective is to secure a Jewish majority in key strategic regions of the West Bank, such as the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor—the scene of heavy fighting in several Arab-Israeli wars.
The Likud government also provided financial incentives for Jews to move to parts of Judea and Samaria that did not necessarily have any strategic value. Their purpose was to solidify Israel’s hold on territory that was part of biblical and historical Palestine/Israel. It is worth remembering that Great Britain severed nearly four fifths of Palestine in 1921 to create a new Arab country then called Transjordan. Many Jews also moved to areas such as Hebron because of their historical and religious significance to the Jewish people.
A third group of Jews who are today considered “settlers” moved to the West Bank primarily for economic reasons; that is, the government provided financial incentives to live there, and the towns were close to their jobs.
Although settlements were
sometimes called “illegal” during the Carter years, the United States never formally adopted this position. Legal scholars have noted that a country acting in self-defense can seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Moreover, the occupying power might require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure that its citizens are not menaced again from that territory.
In fact, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank until a just and lasting peace is achieved. During the debate on the resolution, numerous speakers made it clear that Israel should not be forced back to the “fragile” and “vulnerable” borders it had before the Six-Day War. In addition, Israel also maintains a claim to the area, which it believes is as strong as that of the Palestinians. Thus, the more accurate term, which also reflects Israeli claims, would be the disputed territories.
Israel’s adversaries, and even some friends, assert that settlements are an obstacle to peace. Proponents of settlements take the opposite view, pointing out that from 1949 to 1967, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel. From 1967 until 1977, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements in the territories, yet the Arabs showed no interest in making peace with Israel. In 1977, months after a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem. One year later, Israel froze settlements, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process (see “Camping with Jimmy”), but none would.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict Page 29
