Rabin sat listening, the expression on his face difficult to parse. I knew he was deeply anxious. It was a stalemate, and pessimism filled the air around him. To get through it he needed a show of national unity; he needed to display to Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger that the nation stood squarely behind him. Hence, his one concern during that moment was not Begin’s remonstrations, but whether, at the end of the debate, he would support the government’s actions or not.
Like a cavalry horse answering the bugle, Begin continued galloping headlong into the fray, flinging an arm in a sweeping arc as he denounced what he called “the prime minister’s excessive concessions for the sake of a so-called interim agreement which, were it to be carried out, would fritter away the country’s security in return for war and more war.”
Rabin’s angry supporters began bawling epithets so shrill that the Speaker, a gaunt, self-effacing, gentle man, banged his gavel over and over again, shouting all the while “Order! Order!” No one paid attention. So Begin stood there patiently, waiting for the din to run its course, whereupon, he again addressed Rabin, but this time with a degree of empathy.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” he said reassuringly, to a now totally silent chamber, “even after the grave charges I’ve laid against you in your having vainly tried to exchange Sinai for something much less than peace, I say now, given the seriousness of the situation in our relations with America and, perhaps even the danger of war, I deem it a propitious hour for us all to display national unity.”
Involuntarily, a flicker of a smile rose at the edges of Rabin’s mouth, and a buzz of approval spread around much of the hall. The support of this complex, shrewd, iron-willed leader of the opposition would surely give pause to the American president and his secretary of state as they pondered their “reassessment” policy to punish Israel.
“Under no circumstances is your government to be blamed for the failure of these negotiations,” continued Begin, his right hand held out as if he wanted to shake that of the prime minister’s. “Responsibility for the failure of Dr. Kissinger’s mission is Egypt’s alone.”
And then, with a thump of the podium, jaw jutting, he snarled, “The Egyptians have had the effrontery to treat us as though we were the defeated nation and they the victors, demanding we accept their dictates. The chutzpah of it! Thank God the government put a stop to it, and from the moment it did, our nation has straightened its back so that we stand tall once more, confident in the moral justice of our cause. American and world Jewry will surely stand by us in this hour of crisis, together with our many other American friends, be they in Congress or elsewhere. Indeed, good people of goodwill everywhere will stand by us and lend us support.”
He paused once more as if gathering himself, and his next sentence resounded around the chamber like a clarion call:
“Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the Knesset: we of the opposition shall stand united with the government in facing whatever challenges lie ahead so that, with the help of He who brought us out of the house of Egyptian bondage and led us here to Eretz Yisrael, we shall emerge victorious together.”
As he stepped down from the dais and made his way through the crowded aisle, accepting congratulations on his speech from Knesset members who pressed forward to shake his hand, Yitzhak Rabin intercepted him by the cabinet bench. He extended his hand, and with a lopsided smile, said, “It takes true leadership to do what you just did, Begin. I thank you for that.”
“It was my simple duty,” responded the opposition leader with immense formality. But then, he smiled, and added teasingly, “And now it is your turn to perform an act of unusual national leadership. Go up to the podium and announce for all the world to hear that in this hour of national unity you, as prime minister, call upon the youth of Israel to volunteer to establish new settlements throughout the whole of our homeland – to settle all the waste places of Eretz Yisrael.”
Rabin smirked. “I know exactly what you’re after,” he said, “you’re after my job.”
“Exactly,” bantered Begin, “and as soon as possible.” But then, in all seriousness, “The truth is, if we don’t fill up the barren areas of Yehuda and Shomron with our settlements they will be occupied one day by that terrorist murderer Yasser Arafat and his so-called PLO. Then every Israeli town and village will be in range of their guns.”
In his reply, irritation burst through Rabin’s usually guarded tone: “You know very well where I stand,” he said. “The West Bank is our one bargaining chip for a future peace with the Palestinians. Fill it up with settlements and you destroy the very hope of peace.”
Resignedly, Begin responded, “Mr. Rabin, you go your way and I’ll go mine, and may the Almighty spread his tent of peace over us all.”40
Some two months into the battle for American public opinion, Yitzhak Rabin, full of spirit, and euphoric, strode into my office waving a piece of paper, and exclaimed, “Take a look at this – a gift of the gods from Congress! Our campaign is bearing fruit.”
It was a cable from our Washington Embassy, citing an open letter addressed to President Ford and signed by seventy-six senators urging the president to support Israel in any future negotiation on an interim settlement with Egypt. It said:
“We urge you to make it clear, as we do, that the United States, acting in its own national interests, stands firmly with Israel in the search for peace in future negotiations, and that this premise is the basis of the current reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East.”41
“Ford and Kissinger won’t like this one bit,” gloated Rabin, in a rare show of glee. “We have to thank the American Jewish organizations for this, particularly AIPAC.”[1]
Had Rabin been able to gaze into a crystal ball that day, and divine what the American president would say to the Egyptian president about that letter a week later, on the second of June, he would have been far less sanguine. “The importance of that letter,” Ford told Sadat, “is being distorted out of all proportion. Half of the senators didn’t read it, and a quarter didn’t understand it. Only the additional quarter knew what they were doing. The impact of the letter is negligible.”
The president said this when he and Kissinger met with Sadat and his foreign minister, Ismail Fahmi, at the Residenz, a baroque edifice in the heart of “Old Town” Salzburg, Austria. They were sitting in a high-ceilinged parlor whose walls were hung with majestic portraits of royal Hapsburgs and church eminences, relics of a time when Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state and when the Residenz was the archbishop’s seat of governance. Now it was an official guest house.
What had brought the Americans to Europe was a NATO summit, and what led the Egyptians to rendezvous with them at this place with its spectacular Alpine view was a desire to revisit the possibility of an interim Sinai agreement.
In the course of the Egyptian-American deliberations a number of new ideas were put on the table to sweeten the terms so as to make an agreement more palatable to Israel. One such concerned the status of the early warning stations in Sinai. Rabin had insisted that in the event of a withdrawal these would remain under Israeli control. Sadat had strongly objected. Now, pondering the matter afresh, the Egyptian president suggested that perhaps they could be manned by American personnel. Kissinger immediately seized upon the idea and adroitly renovated it, as only he knew how, into a dazzling exercise in diplomatic flattery:
Kissinger: Again, President Sadat, you reveal yourself as a statesman. I think we can sell this idea. If the Israelis think about it carefully, the idea of Americans manning the warning stations is an interesting one. It is very novel. From the Israeli point of view an American presence is better than an agreement of limited duration. The idea of Americans manning the warning stations engages the United States in a permanent way. It is a better assurance for Israel.
Ford: I believe it is very saleable to the American public. Moreover, if Israel accepts the proposal, the Israeli supporters [in Congress] would help.
Kissinger (to Ford): It is
very important that this should not be told to Rabin next week [when he was due again in Washington]. (To Sadat): We will indicate to Rabin that you will be willing to look at the question of the early warning stations, without going into details. And then two weeks after Rabin goes home we will get back to him specifically with your creative idea.
Sadat (to Ford): You have said that it is saleable in America?
Kissinger (to Sadat): It is important that you not look too eager for an interim agreement. Say you are going back to Cairo to think about it. If we get tough with Rabin we have a chance of pulling this off. (To Ford): You will first have to shake up Rabin, and then you could send me out to the area again.
Sadat: You mean to present it as an American proposal? You could then adopt the posture of putting pressure on me to accept it. You could say that you insist I modify my position.
Kissinger: This would enable us to say that President Ford was the one to have broken the impasse.
Sadat (to Egyptian Foreign Minister Fahmi): Work out the language with Henry.
Fahmi: This will bring about a major crisis between Egypt and the Soviets.
Sadat (to the Americans): You have nothing to fear from the Soviets. The Soviets are clumsy and suspicious. The United States will have the upper hand.
Kisisnger: They cannot do anything.
Ford: I believe President Sadat’s ideas are saleable.
Kissinger: To sum up – I believe our approach here ought to be that you [Sadat] are going home to consider what each of us has said and weigh our conversation. You should not appear too anxious to get an interim agreement. Say that the prospects are fifty-fifty. We can tell the press that the atmosphere of our talks here was excellent and that both President Ford and President Sadat are going back home to think about the substance of our conversations.
Sadat: And at the appropriate time I will bear witness that it was President Ford who was responsible for finally breaking the impasse and achieving an interim agreement.42
Thus it was that after more comings and goings, triggering recriminations and vindications, initial tentative understandings began to emerge until, finally, the obstacles to a Sinai interim agreement, which came to be known as Sinai ii, began to melt away, one by one. As scripted in Salzburg, President Sadat wobbled about the desirability of such a settlement at all, saying its prospects were at best “fifty-fifty.” President Ford promptly “pressured” him into a rethink, and proposed an American presence in Sinai. Rabin agreed, as did the Egyptian leader, after much questioning and hesitation. Sadat then applauded the American president for having finally broken the impasse, and Secretary of State Kissinger flew out once more to the Middle East to wrap up the whole thing.
The Israeli line at the eastern end of the Sinai passes – the Gidi and the Mitla – was finally settled, an American presence in the early warning stations (the Sinai Support Mission) was put into place, the Sinai oilfields were transferred back to Egypt, and, with that, the agreement was ready for signing.
Needless to say, President Ford was delighted at the successful outcome of his and Kissinger’s efforts and on the day of the signing, 1 September 1975, he telephoned Rabin in Jerusalem to express his congratulations. Tasked with transcribing the exchange, I hardly recorded a word of it because it turned out to be a four-minute swap of unexceptional platitudes. Not so in the case of the call the president made to Anwar Sadat in Alexandria on the same day.
There are times when heads of states stumble into the theater of the absurd, and when gestures intended to be acts of higher diplomacy turn into riotous burlesque worthy of the Marx Brothers. This was the case with that telephone call:
President Ford: Hello. President Sadat?
President Sadat: Hello. This is President Sadat.
President Ford: How are you this morning? I wanted to call you and congratulate you on the great role that you played in the negotiations that have culminated in this agreement.
President Sadat: Hello? [Inaudible]
President Ford: Unfortunately, I don’t hear you too well, Mr. President. I hope that my conversation is coming through more clearly. Let me express most emphatically on behalf of my Government the appreciation for your statesmanship, despite adversity and some criticism, the spirit in which you have approached the need for an agreement. I am most grateful for the leadership that you have given, and look forward to continuing the work with you…
President Sadat: Hello?
President Ford: Hello. Can you hear me, Mr. President?
President Sadat: Hello?
President Ford: I am asking, can you hear me, Mr. President?
President Sadat: This is President Sadat.
President Ford: I am asking, can you hear me, Mr. President?
President Sadat: Not very well.
President Ford: I know that you and I recognize that stagnation and stalemate in the Middle East would have been potentially disastrous, and your leadership in working with Secretary Kissinger and with the Israelis – all of us are most grateful for. And as we continue to work together, personally, as well as government-to-government…
President Sadat: Hello? This is President Sadat speaking.
President Ford: Yes, I can hear you, Mr. President. I hope you can hear me, Mr. President.
President Sadat: President Ford? Hello.
President Ford: I don’t hear you too well, Mr. President.
President Sadat: Is that President Ford speaking?
President Ford: Yes, this is President Ford.
President Sadat: Go ahead, please.
President Ford: The connection, unfortunately, is not too good for me to hear your comments, Mr. President. Let me say, if I might, despite the difficulties, that Mrs. Ford and I hope that Mrs. Sadat and you and your children will visit the United States sometime this fall. Secretary Kissinger has told me of the very warm hospitality that you have extended to him and Mrs. Kissinger, and we look forward to reciprocating when you come to the United States in the fall of 1975.
President Sadat: Hello?
President Ford: I regret that I can’t hear you. The connection is very bad. I hope you can hear me and my comments from the United States. Mr. President, I understand that Secretary Kissinger is coming to Alexandria to personally deliver the documents for your initialing, and I have asked Henry to extend to you on that occasion the gratitude…
President Sadat: Hello?
President Ford: Hello, Mr. President.
President Sadat: Hello, Mr. President.
President Ford: I can hear you better now.
President Sadat: Mr. President, I hope you and your family are well.
President Ford: I am feeling very well, Mr. President, and I hope you are, too.
President Sadat: I want to thank you for your personal message [Inaudible].
President Ford: I, unfortunately, could not hear as well as I would like the last comments you made. The connection from here is not, apparently, as good as I hope you have there, but…
President Sadat: I hear you quite well.
President Ford: The efforts of Secretary Kissinger and myself, we feel, were completely worth what we have done, but our efforts could not have been successful without your leadership and statesmanship.
President Sadat: Thank you, Mr. President, very much.
President Ford: We will see you soon, I hope.
President Sadat: We are looking forward to coming, with pleasure, and convey my good wishes to your family.
President Ford: And my best to yours, sir.
President Sadat: Thank you very much.
President Ford: I would just wish to add…
President Sadat: Hello?
President Ford: Hello? [Inaudible].
President Sadat: Hello! Hello!
With that the line went dead.43
[1]The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest and most influential pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Chapter 25
A Presidential Letter
The prime minister’s room in the Knesset had two seating areas, one around a large desk and the other around a couch, both of which were a rather drab brown but toned well, nevertheless, with the chestnut-colored curtains and carpet. As was his practice when wanting to engage a visitor in personal conversation, it was toward the couch that the prime minister guided the leader of the opposition in the early afternoon of 2 September 1975. Rabin wished to explain to Begin what had transpired between February and March of that year, when he had withstood American pressure to conclude an interim agreement with Egypt, and the previous day, when he had signed one.
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 32
