Impatiently, Jimmy Carter brought out the heavy artillery. “Not if building such a home would prove an obstacle to peace, and prevent a Geneva conference from being convened,” he chided. “My impression is, it would be regarded as an indication of bad faith, a signal of your apparent intention to make the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip permanent. It might very well close off all hope of negotiations. On the other hand, if you would refrain from creating new settlements while we prepare for Geneva, that would be a gracious and encouraging sign.” And then, totally exasperated, “Mr. Begin, it would be incompatible with my responsibilities as president of the United States if I did not put this to you as bluntly and as candidly as I possibly could.”
The prime minister leaned back and settled his gaze on the ceiling above the president’s head. The two men were on vastly different trajectories, a no-exit confrontation on the settlements. But Begin was not going to wrangle. There was no point in a tug-of-war. He knew that on this issue of the settlements, the president was as determined as he was. Nevertheless, he somehow had to persuade this judgmental president who wanted to be a healer that he too honestly and truly wanted peace. So he shifted focus, and in an utterly composed and civil manner, said, “Mr. President, on behalf of the government of Israel I have the honor to present to you our official proposal on the convening of a Geneva peace conference. It is entitled, ‘The Framework for the Peacemaking Process,’” and he laid the document on the table before the president.
As Carter leafed through the pages, Begin went on, “We fully concur with your view that the goal of Geneva has to be a full and normal peace. For too long, we Jews have been the exception of history. We now have our own country, and the normal rules of nations must apply. After wars come peace treaties, and the purpose of negotiations should be peace treaties. This is why we stand on the principle of direct negotiations – direct negotiations without any prior conditions.”
“On everything? Are you saying everything is negotiable?” Thus Brzezinski, in an accent as Polish as Begin’s own. “Borders, withdrawals, the West Bank, everything is on the table – is that what you’re really saying?”
“Dr. Brzezinski, the word ‘non-negotiable’ is not a part of our vocabulary,” retorted Begin smugly. “Everything is open to negotiation. Everybody is at liberty to put on the table any subject he deems fit. Take Sadat of Egypt for example. Sadat says we have to retreat to the old sixty-seven armistice lines and that a so-called Palestinian state must be established in Judea and Samaria, and linked – Heaven forbid! – by an extra-territorial corridor across our Negev to the Gaza Strip. We say to President Sadat, that’s what you want? Fine! You are fully entitled to bring that position to Geneva, just as we are entitled to bring ours. Another example – Jerusalem. In Israel there is an almost total national consensus that the city shall forever remain the undivided and eternal capital of the Jewish people. Yet we are not asking the Arabs to accept this position in advance as our condition for going to Geneva. Not at all! This is what I mean when I say no prior conditions. Gentlemen, please understand, Israel has no conditions, only positions!”
“That’s positive,” responded the president, thawing. But then, sharply, “What about Security Council Resolution 242 – do you agree that it should serve as the legal basis for the negotiations? Do you accept that?”
“Absolutely! It is written into our proposal. Actually, our proposal refers to Resolution 338, which already embodies 242 but specifies the additional need for negotiations directly between the parties. And I will be happy to say so in public.”
“That will help a lot,” said the president.
The prime minister then went on to list the other features of his Geneva proposal: that Israel would be willing to participate in the conference as of 10 October 1977 – that is, after the Jewish Holy Days; that the other participants should be the accredited representatives of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon; that there should be an inaugural session at which the parties would make public opening statements; after that, separate bilateral committees should be established – Egypt-Israel, Syria-Israel, Jordan-Israel, Lebanon-Israel – and these should go to work to negotiate the respective peace treaties. Once done, the public session should be reconvened for the signing ceremonies.
“And if Egypt refuses to attend unless the PLO is invited, then what?” asked the president, his eyes sharp and assessing.
“Then Egypt makes Geneva impossible,” retorted Begin, without batting an eye. “The Israeli position was, and remains, that the PLO cannot attend under any circumstances. They have their charter, their covenant, which calls for the destruction of the Jewish State. So if the PLO shows up, Israel walks out. The PLO is a terrorist organization. However” – this reassuringly – “we have no objection to Palestinians as such participating in the Jordanian delegation; we shall not investigate their personal credentials.”
Everybody seemed happy with that, which prompted Begin to quip, “And by the by, we Jews, too, are Palestinians. Under the British mandate we all had Palestinian passports. There were Palestinian Arabs and there were Palestinian Jews.”
Nobody seemed to appreciate this, and the president plowed on, “But if the PLO recognizes the right of Israel to exist, would you not then talk to them? We have notified the PLO that if they fully endorse Resolutions 242 and 338 and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist we will begin to talk, and listen to their positions.”
Begin met fire with fire: “I say to you, Mr. President, I don’t need anybody to recognize my right to exist, and even if that terrorist Arafat were to make such a declaration, I wouldn’t believe a word he says. It would be tantamount to somebody approaching me with a knife and saying, ‘Take this knife and thrust it into your heart.’ I would reply, ‘but why should I agree to stick a knife into my own heart?’ And he would say, ‘For the sake of peace. Please commit suicide for the sake of peace.’ You are asking me to consider talking to such a person? The PLO’s vision of peace is our destruction. No! ABSOLUTELY NO!”
“But what happens if the bilateral committee idea which you have suggested flounders because of the boycott of the PLO?” asked Secretary of State Vance, trying to account for every possible pitfall.
“Then quiet American diplomacy should seek to establish other avenues of negotiation,” answered Begin.
“Such as what?
“Such as, for example, proximity talks. Let an American mediator move back and forth between our delegations, meeting in close proximity under the same roof, until he comes up with something. And there are other ways. The important thing is to get going. I have given you, Mr. President, the essence of our ‘Framework for the Peacemaking Process.’ We consider them serious proposals, designed to start an initiative, to keep momentum alive, and to bring to realization our yearnings for peace. We have an open mind on all these propositions. And with God’s help, and with the help of the United States, we shall surely make progress.”62
At the end of the two-hour session the White House Press Office issued the following statement:
The meeting this morning was devoted to a thorough and searching discussion of how to move forward toward an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The president and the prime minister each developed their ideas on the issues involved. They agreed that all the issues must be settled through negotiations between the parties based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which all the governments directly concerned have accepted. They also agreed that this goal would best be served by moving rapidly toward the convening of the Geneva Conference this year, keeping in mind at the same time the importance of careful preparation…. The president and the prime minister will meet again tonight at the working dinner, which the president is giving at the White House.
Photograph credit: Ya’acov Sa’ar & Israel Government Press Office
Following a White House dinner President Carter escorts Prime Minister Begin arm-in-arm to his private quarters for a nocturnal chat,
19 July 1977
Chapter 36
The Dinner
Jimmy Carter ran an austere White House, and, consonant with
his innate Calvinism, cast himself in the role of citizen-President. He banned Hail to the Chief, slashed the entertainment budget, sold the presidential yacht, pruned the limousine fleet, and generally rid his mansion of foppery, artifice, and pretentiousness. He even carried his own bags. So the dinner that evening in the Executive Dining Room was, characteristically, a business suit affair. It was gracious, nevertheless, the president smiling as he opened the proceedings with an announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen – history is being made here tonight. This is the first time ever that a wholly kosher menu under strict rabbinic supervision is being served in the White House. And this, in honor of, and out of respect for, our esteemed guest of honor, the prime minister of the State of Israel, Mr. Menachem Begin.”
I joined in the applause wholeheartedly, recalling those occasions when I had dined in this place in the entourage of other prime ministers, picking at some vegetable dish while they enjoyed gourmet treyf. A couple of weeks before our trip Begin had charged me with the almost impossible task of recommending a high-class kosher caterer for the occasion, this at the request of the White House, and in consultation with our embassy. The task was next to impossible because of the ferocious competition between the potential candidates. I quickly surrendered the challenge to the Rabbinical Council of America, a central rabbinic organization which, together with the White House housekeeper, Mary Lou, vetted menus and cast the deciding vote. The result was a succulent banquet of roast lamb, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted potatoes and green beans with almonds, followed by fruit and assorted desserts, all washed down with fine Israeli wines.
The guests were of the Georgetown media elite and politicians, with a goodly sprinkling of Jewish establishment bigwigs, and all applauded and laughed when Mr. Begin, rising to toast his host said, tongue-in-cheek, “Mr. President, before I thank you for your warm hospitality, I have a personal statement to make. I owe you and some others in this historic room a profound apology. I know that my electoral victory came to you as a total surprise, so I crave your forgiveness. And by the by, my name does rhyme with Fagin.”
“Oh my God, is he funny!” enthused the woman sitting opposite me, grabbing a pen and jotting down his comment. We were sitting at a long dining table, one of four that branched, candelabra-like, from the top table, where the president and prime minister sat. Hamilton Jordan, the president’s youthful chief of staff, had introduced her to me earlier, giving a name that sounded like Merry Trash. The hand she had extended was cluttered with rings. She was wrapped in garb that looked like grain sacks. Her face was creased, and divided by a pair of horn-rimmed dark glasses. I had gathered that she was a high-flying Washington gossip columnist.
“Wow!” exploded Merry Trash, with a sharp intake of breath. She was reacting to an observation Mr. Begin had just made in his toast that “Israel is a tiny land which God, in His wisdom, endowed with virtually no natural resources. Why? Because when the Almighty took us out of Egypt He told Moses to turn left instead of right. So Ishmael got the oil and Israel got the stones – two tablets of stone with their ten ‘shalts’ and ‘shalt nots.’ And by them did we shape a moral civilization, and by them do we strive to live.”
“Oh my God, he sounds so scriptural,” gushed Merry Trash, in a Gloria Swanson surge of passion. “He carries his faith like a humble burden.”
Ignoring this outburst, the man on my right, Senator Richard Stone of Florida, observed dryly, “I understand that things today with the president went somewhat better than expected.”
I concurred.
“Perhaps not stratospherically better,” the senator added, “but apparently you Israelis put a little more on the table than you were expected to, and found a little more than you expected in return.”
“I think the prime minister and the president just liked one another a little more than they expected to,” said Hamilton Jordan easily. He was in his mid-thirties, and looked like an athlete.
Ambassador Samuel Lewis leaned toward us and, lighting up a cigar, remarked. “As you probably know, Senator, the atmosphere of this visit just didn’t happen of itself. A few of us had to work very hard to persuade some people around the president” – he was staring at Hamilton Jordan, who smiled back at him – “to reshape the preparations, to give the visit a different spirit, not to be too confrontational.”
Merry Trash began to record what the ambassador was saying, so he threw her a peppery glance and made it clear he was talking off the record. She laid down her pen and, he, pointing with his cigar in the direction of the national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, added, “Zbig, I think, is still skeptical about the soft-touch approach. He would like the president to be tougher with Begin. But in my view the president has got it just right – co-opting the man, bringing him along, not engaging him too sharply. The object, after all, is to get him to Geneva.”
Merry Trash (could that really be her name?) effused, “But Ambassador, darling, what has Mr. Begin actually conceded? What compromises has he really made? What’s he giving that will make the Arabs want to go to Geneva?”
A butler distracted Lewis’s attention by asking what he would like for dessert. Selecting the lemon meringue pie, Lewis tossed a smile at Merry Trash, and said, “My dear, that’s what it’s all about – making the right choices.” Then, puffing on his cigar, he looked up at the ceiling, as if gazing into an inscrutable future. Obviously, he was not going to be drawn into a question and answer session with this gossip columnist.
“What do you make of Begin as a man?” Senator Stone asked Lewis. “Or is that an indiscreet question?”
“Not at all. I like him. I think we’ve hit it off. I get a different sense of him one-on-one than I’d gotten from the briefings I’d read. Contrary to his popular image, he is determined not to lead Israel into war. My belief is he wants to go down in history as a peacemaker, as a Moses, not a Samson.”
“Good quote,” crunched Merry Trash, her mouth full of apple pie. “Can I use it?”
“No!” said Lewis.
“So, are you saying,” continued the senator, “there’s a chance that ultimately he’ll soften up, go along with Carter on things like the PLO and the settlements?”
“No, I’m not. He will be as stubborn as hell on those things, and will resist anything that can be characterized as pressure.”
Dinner now over, people began to mingle, and suddenly I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a distinguished-looking man with cropped silver hair and jovial, guileless eyes encased in thick spectacles, smiling down at me.
“Remember me?” he beamed.
“Justice Goldberg!”
Everyone within reach rose to shake the man’s hand, for no Jew enjoyed more public esteem in American life than did Arthur Goldberg. Now seventy, this son of eastern European immigrants, a one-time labor leader, had been President Kennedy’s secretary of labor and, after that, a supreme court justice. President Johnson made him ambassador to the United Nations and in that role he had been a principal draftsman of the celebrated United Nations Resolution 242. I knew him slightly, having been introduced to him by previous prime ministers.
“May I trouble you for a private word,” he asked affably, and he slipped his hand through the crook of my arm to walk me through the socializing guests, half a dozen of whom were lining up under a Lincoln portrait to rub shoulders with the president and the prime minister, some asking for their autographs.
We crossed a marble hallway to a lounge whose walls were covered in a red silk fabric and where two naval orderlies, all starched in white and gold, saluted rigidly as we entered, and then left. Clearly, Arthur Goldberg was familiar with these corridors.
The elder statesman closed the door and, all his affability gone, said, “I’ve dragged you in here because you’re the one person I recognize from the old da
ys. There are some hard truths your new people in Jerusalem have to understand.”
Flabbergasted, I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up his hand to silence me, saying he expected no comment, no response, no observation; that I was just to listen to what he had to say and pass it on to whomever I saw fit. The first part of the message was that Begin’s visit was not what it appeared to be. Carter, he said, was trying very hard to put a positive gloss on things, to avoid a confrontation. Begin had to appreciate that all American presidents, secretaries of state, and pentagon officials knew only one kind of Israel – Labor Israel, the Israel of Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Golda, Rabin – the Israel that was pragmatic, ready for territorial compromise for the sake of peace.
Then, even more passionately, “To most Americans, Begin’s ideology is an enigma. To the president, the ‘not an inch’ posture on the Land of Israel is baffling. It is equally puzzling to most American Jews. Sure, American Jews will support the prime minister in public. It’s the right thing to do. Begin, after all, is the head of a freely elected democratic government. But in private, many Jews are troubled and confused, myself included.”
I tried to get a word in, to tell him he should say this to Begin to his face, not to me, but again he shut me up and went on relentlessly. “The president has sincere feelings toward Israel. But I fear one day, in frustration, he might decide that Begin’s vision of retaining the whole of biblical Israel is so unreasonable – so unreasonable, so unrealistic, so liable to suck the United States into war, that he will decide it is his unbounded duty, nay his religious duty, to save Israel from itself. And if that were to happen, whatever the official disclaimers might be, it would mean only one thing – a settlement imposed on Israel by the Great Powers against its will.”
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 47
