The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership

by Avner, Yehuda

  The date was 3 November 1976, and Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, had just beaten the incumbent President Gerald Ford in the race for the White House.

  “Ah, nostalgia!” chortled Begin, beaming like a boy. “What a word! I’m not even sure Mr. Rabin understands its full meaning. It is derived, as you know, from the Greek nostos – a connotation of longing for a former happy circumstance.”

  Begin took pleasure in showing off his penchant for classical languages, picked up as a law student at Warsaw University, and he assumed the man he was talking to, an Oxford graduate, would appreciate his little dip into etymology. But Walfish refused to accept such an answer, so he pressed, “Do you think it was an inappropriate thing for Rabin to say?”

  Begin allowed his smile to cool off: “You tell me, Mr. Walfish – would you call Dr. Kissinger a former happy circumstance to be nostalgic about?”

  “That’s my question, sir.”

  Begin’s brows furrowed and his eyes frowned: “For a prime minister of our country to say that Israel shall yet yearn for Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger is tantamount to saying to the American people: what a pity you elected Mr. Jimmy Carter as your next president.”

  “Then you are concerned?”

  “Concerned? Of course I’m concerned. Let me reveal to you something that has not yet been reported. During the height of the American election campaign I called on the prime minister in the company of a number of my colleagues to express dismay at certain of his public statements, which could only be construed as crass interference in their elections.”

  “You’re talking about his complimentary remarks about President Ford and the enhanced military and economic aid we are now getting?”

  “I am. We told him that his biased statements were undermining the bipartisan support Israel enjoys from democrats and republicans alike. Moreover, Mr. Rabin has done this before. When he was ambassador in Washington he brazenly came out in favor of Richard Nixon against Hubert Humphrey. Actually” – this with an impish smile – “it paid off at the time, since Nixon won by a huge margin, as you will recall.”

  Walfish’s mouth lifted into a sarcastic smile, and he teased, “So now that Kissinger is about to leave office might you, Mr. Begin, have cause to miss him – as a Jew, I mean?”

  Measure for measure, Begin bantered, “So, now that you’ve finished your glass of tea might you, Mr Walfish, like another – as a friend, I mean?”

  The Jerusalem Post man chuckled and shook his head. Being a veteran, he had had experience with the good humor and easy rapport which made Begin such a favorite with the press.

  “In that case, allow me to indulge on my own,” said Begin, and he raised a finger to catch the waitress’s eye. Then, “As to your question, I got to know Dr. Kissinger quite well over the course of time, and I would say, yes, as a Jew he has a certain feeling toward us. But how can I be expected to feel nostalgia at his departure after all the occasions he exerted such pressure on us that caused us incalculable harm?”

  “Such as when?” The correspondent’s eyes were focused firmly on Mr. Begin but his pen carried on writing as if of its own accord.

  “Such as when Mr. Rabin initially said no to the so-called interim agreement with Egypt, and Kissinger imposed a so-called ‘reassessment’ policy on us between March and August last year. He claimed it was President Ford’s doing, but we all know it was his, and his pressure became so relentless that he ultimately forced Rabin to pull back deep into Sinai, abandon the Mitla and the Gidi Passes, surrender the oil fields, and all for what – for peace? Fiddlesticks! Sadat did not even renounce his state of war, let alone lift his boycott and allow our ships through the Suez Canal.” And then, without pause, “Please excuse me a moment, otherwise I’ll be in trouble with my wife.”

  Begin put his hand in his pocket, extracted a pill, swilled it down with his tea, said with a twinkle, “Now you are a witness that I’ve followed my wife’s orders,” and then returned weightily to the subject in hand: “You didn’t by any chance follow the second tv debate between Carter and Ford, did you?” he asked the journalist.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Carter accused Ford of virtually bringing Israel to its knees – those were his words: ‘to its knees’ – because of the ‘reassessment’ policy. And then there was the matter of the airlift during the Yom Kippur War, which was Nixon’s doing much more than Kissinger’s. And what about” – he was running on all cylinders now – “when he rescued the Egyptian Third Army from inevitable surrender in the Yom Kippur War, depriving us of the chance of reaching some sort of an accommodation with the Egyptians? We had a whole Egyptian army at our mercy, and there was he, Kissinger, banging on the table trying to panic Prime Minister Golda Meir into believing the Soviets were about to march against us if we didn’t lift the siege. I’ve seen the transcripts. I’ve seen his actual words. He said, ‘Mrs. Meir, you want the Third Army? Well, the United States has no intention of entering World War Three because you want the Egyptian Third Army.’ That was his language.”

  Begin paused to take a long sip of his tea, and a sudden glint entered his eyes. It was a puckish shine, a shine of reminiscence, that said, “I have a good story to tell,” and tell it he did:

  “I once addressed Kissinger from the rostrum of the Knesset. I spoke to him as if he was standing right there in front of me. ‘Dr. Kissinger,’ I said, ‘you are a Jew. You are not the first Jew to achieve high office in the country of your domicile. Do not forget those other Jews, who had such complexes about being accused of bias in favor of their own people that they did the very opposite. They bent over backward. Don’t forget those Jews, Dr. Kissinger.’”

  “I recall that,” said Walfish. “And I recall you were taken to task for it by government people.”

  “I was,” said Begin, the glint still in his eyes. “There were some who railed against me. But I don’t regret a word I said, because I spoke the truth. And do you know what?” – the glint flowered into a grin – “I met Dr. Kissinger some time later and he, with that dry wit of his, said to me with mock sulkiness, as if I’d just berated him, ‘Mr. Begin,’ he said, ‘I heard you gave me hell in the Knesset.’ And I said, ‘Dr. Kissinger, me – hell? Never! Paradise is where you belong. Do the right thing by Israel,’ I said, ‘and you’ll earn your place in Paradise.’”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “Oh, he just laughed, but we both knew it was yenim’s g’lechter” [Yiddish for “no laughing matter”].

  A couple of months after that conversation, in mid-January 1977, Rabin called me in to say he wanted me to draft a letter to Kissinger.

  “He’s stepping down in a few days,” the prime minister said, “and I want to send him a farewell message.”

  “What kind, official or informal?” I asked.

  Rabin pondered, and said, “A bit of both. We’ve had such a topsy-turvy relationship over the years – good times, bad times, friendship, fights. I have to think about it.”

  Hands in pockets, he strode over to the window, stared into the murkiness of the winter twilight, and when his thoughts had germinated, turned and told me what he wanted to say. It was this:

  Dear Dr. Kissinger,

  This letter, addressed to you now on the eve of your departure from the State Department, is no mere formal communication of appreciation. We have known each other too long and too well for that. I, therefore, ask you to read my letter in the personal spirit in which it is written.

  I look forward to a time when we shall have the opportunity to meet and chat about your days in government over these past eight years. These have been fateful years for America and the world, and if their direction has led mankind a step or two closer to international sanity, I have no doubt that you have had something to do with it. The chapter entitled “The Kissinger Period” in future history books will tell of one of the most dramatic, incisive and imaginative periods in American foreign policy. As you clear your desk at
the State Department you can take satisfaction in the knowledge that you leave the affairs of nations in a somewhat better condition than you found them.

  Hopefully, this applies also to my own part of the globe. In the course of our many personal and formal discussions we have not always seen eye to eye on the affairs of the Middle East. But I believe we have always understood each other, just as I know that we have been impelled by the same common concerns and aspirations for peace.

  Few men have brought to the negotiating exercise such knowledge of our region, such skill, such an understanding and, if I may add, such boundless energy, as yourself. It is my hope that the building blocks you helped so assiduously to create will prove to be a foundation for a structure more permanent and firm. Certainly, we are determined to try.

  In some important respects the Israel you knew when you came into office is now a stronger place. And I know that, in this area too, you have had a share in making it possible. Which is why we owe you much gratitude for helping to translate words into deeds, sentiments into actions and, not least, goodwill into policy. I will add that you leave office having helped create a period of unprecedented understanding in the history of the American-Israel relationship…It is in the spirit of these sentiments that I extend to you now my very best wishes and all good fortune for the future.

  After Rabin had approved and signed the letter, I asked him if he truly believed he would miss Kissinger that much, given all the fights and the ups and the downs over the years. He gave me a dour look, lit a cigarette, bent down to extract a tumbler from a bottom drawer, filled it with Scotch and water, and with absolute conviction, said, “Yes, I’ll miss him.”

  “Why?”

  “For three reasons: One – he’s the only secretary of state who ever truly understood the Israel-Arab conflict. Two – the interim agreement is working out fine; not a single Israeli soldier has fallen on the Egyptian front since we signed it. And three – our relationship with Washington has never been better. What we now have is tantamount to a strategic alliance.”

  “And Jimmy Carter – what do you make of him?”

  Rabin rolled his eyes. “God knows! From what I’ve heard he sounds like a pie-in-the-sky do-gooder, with visions of curing all the ills of the world, beginning with our own. My fear is he’s going to embark on a misbegotten crusade to bring peace to the Holy Land and end up a misinformed meddler embroiling us all in an inferno.”

  Imagine, then, his pleasant surprise when President Jimmy Carter welcomed him to the White House – this was on 7 March 1977 – and emphasized in his public greeting America’s “long-standing commitment and friendship to Israel,” saying how “our two peoples are forever bound by our sharing of democratic principles and human liberty, and our constant search for peace.” The Jewish State, he said, “must have defensible borders so that peace commitments would never be violated,” and that, “in welcoming you and your delegation, I wish to reassure you at the outset, Mr. Prime Minister, that the United States is deeply committed to the security and welfare of Israel. There is no intention of our imposing upon your country any settlement that you feel might jeopardize your security. In fact, our commitment to Israel’s security takes precedence over any other interest in the area.”

  What could possibly sound better than that? But behind closed doors the official talks that got under way took an ominous turn as President Carter began to press Rabin to reconvene the international Geneva peace conference in order to establish a comprehensive settlement with all of Israel’s neighbors. Rabin abhorred the idea of an international peace conference. It would mean facing Russia as a co-chairman with the U.S. and a solid bloc of hostile Arab states, backed by Moscow and the non-aligned nations, all intent on enfeebling Israel – a sure prescription for failure, if not outright war.

  There was more: President Carter wanted not only Geneva; he wanted to know how the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat, would fit into the whole negotiation process. This core question was picked up by the Speaker of the House, Thomas (Tip) O’Neill, at a stag working dinner given by Carter for some sixty political heavyweights.

  Tip O’Neill was a big, shambling Irish-American, and when he rose to ask about the PLO he did so in a deceptively innocent fashion – deceptive in that Rabin suspected he was speaking not only for himself but for President Carter, too.

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” he said, “why can’t you bring yourself to negotiate with the PLO? Why can’t we ask you to do what we did? We talked to the Vietcong, not just with the North Vietnamese. If that’s what we did as representatives of a Great Power, why can’t you do the same? Why could the French negotiate with the Algerian FLN and conclude an agreement with them? Why were the British able to negotiate with underground movements all over the world – yours included – while you are unable to negotiate with the PLO? Why?”

  Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office

  Prime Minister Rabin meets with President Carter at the White House, 7 March 1977

  Author in conversation with Prime Minister Rabin and wife Leah, en route to Washington on presidential flight, March 1977

  Photo credit: Israel Government Press Office

  Rabin’s answer was delivered with tremendous conviction.

  “Mr. O’Neill,” he said, “let me ask you in return: did the Vietcong refuse to recognize the existence of the United States? Was their basic program a ‘Vietcong Covenant’ denying America’s right to exist? [an allusion to the PLO’s National Covenant denying Israel’s right to exist]. Did the FLN plan to annihilate France? Did the underground organizations in Israel and elsewhere challenge the existence of Great Britain? What basis is there for negotiations with the PLO, whose avowed raison d’être is to destroy the State of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state?”

  This logic did not move Jimmy Carter, and the visit, which had begun on such a hopeful note, ended with the two leaders locked on a collision course.

  In his diary entry of 7 March 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote this:

  Prime Minister Rabin came over from Israel. I’ve put in an awful lot of time studying the Middle East question and was hoping Rabin would give me some outline of what Israel ultimately hopes to see achieved in a permanent peace settlement. I found him very timid, very stubborn, and also somewhat ill at ease. At the working supper Speaker Tip O’Neill asked him, for instance, under what circumstances he would permit the Palestinians to be represented at the Geneva talks, and he was adamantly opposed to any meeting if the PLO or other representatives of the Palestinians were there. When he went upstairs with me, just the two of us, I asked him to tell me what Israel wanted me to do when I met with the Arab leaders, and if there was something specific, for instance, that I could propose to Sadat. He didn’t unbend at all, nor did he respond. It seems to me that the Israelis, at least Rabin, don’t trust our government or any of their neighbors. I guess there is some justification for this distrust. I’ve never met any of the Arab leaders, but am looking forward to see if they are more flexible than Rabin.”52

  And of that same occasion Yitzhak Rabin wrote:

  [I was given] reassurances from the President that the contents of our conversations would under no circumstances be allowed to leak out or be publicized in any manner. I was therefore all the more surprised to hear of the President’s far-reaching statements at a press conference the next day [which] succeeded in dashing my spirits…In explicating his views on peace, borders, and other issues related to Middle East peace negotiations, Carter practically committed the United States and the presidency to an explicit position – in complete contradiction to all that had been said to me during our meetings. His remark on Israel’s withdrawal to the 4 June 1967 lines, with minor modifications, was the worst part of it. No President before him had ever committed the United States to such a position. Even so, it never occurred to me that only ten days later Carter would speak of the need for a ‘Palestinian homeland,’ a further drama
tic change in traditional U.S. policy.53

  No wonder Rabin was full of foreboding when he departed Washington. With his statement, Jimmy Carter had publicly all but unilaterally sided with the Arabs in saying that Israel would have to withdraw back to the pre–Six-Day War 1967 lines, which reduced the Jewish State to a vulnerable nine-mile waist along the densely populated coastal plain where the bulk of the nation’s population resided, and where the greater part of its economic infrastructure was located, leaving the country with no defensive depth and rendering it vulnerable to attack after attack. Moreover, the president was advocating the establishment of a Palestinian ‘homeland’ which, in Rabin’s eyes, was a euphemism for a Palestinian state – and all this under the umbrella of an international conference in which the PLO would be a partner. For all of the president’s reassurances, here were the seeds of an imposed settlement, and one which, in essence, was almost indistinguishable from the reviled Rogers Plan of 1969.

  Such acrimony, such a breakdown of trust between an Israeli prime minister and an American president, had not occurred in decades. When I discussed with Rabin the two major speeches he was still to deliver before leaving America, one for a black-tie Israel Bonds affair at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach and the other at a United Jewish Appeal dinner at the New York Waldorf Astoria – speeches which I had yet to draft – he told me to put a brave face on things and totally downplay his differences with the president, just as he was doing with the Israeli press.

  Our final day in America was a Shabbat, and we rested up before flying home that night. Generally, the prime minister enjoyed a chat over a nightcap after take-off, but on this occasion he was unusually uncommunicative, so we lounged about and tried to get some sleep as best we might. Seven hours later, nibbling on an El Al breakfast, Rabin told us that he had spent much of the night ruminating over Jimmy Carter’s abysmal ignorance of our affairs, and thinking about how the situation would affect the forthcoming Israeli general election three months hence. The last thing he needed before polling day was a crisis with Washington, he said. What he did not tell us was that he was brooding on something else as well, the dirtiest trick fate could possibly have played on him. It had sneaked up on him from behind, and it would eventually catapult him headlong into his own political Waterloo. This defeat did not come from his political opponent’s electoral advantages, and not from his acrimonious dealings with the president of the United States; it was as a result of the accidental discovery of an illegal bank account belonging to his wife, at the National Bank in Washington, DC.