The general’s response was a formal salute.
And now he stood face to face with Golda Meir. They looked at each other solemnly, he half bowing as he took her hand.
“I have wanted to talk to you for a long time,” he said.
“And I have been waiting for you for a long time,” she answered.
Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office
Israeli and Egyptian flags festoon Ben Gurion Airport, 19 November 1977
Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office
Prime Minister Begin welcomes President Sadat, with President Ephraim Katzir
Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office
Pres. Sadat, P.M. Begin & Pres. Katzir stand at attention during the playing of the Egyptian and Israeli national anthems
Photograph credit: Ya’acov Sa’ar & Israel Government Press Office
President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin in discussion in the course of a working dinner at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 19 November 1977
“But now I am here,” he said.
“Shalom. Welcome,” she said.
He continued along the carpet, shaking the hands of the rest of the ministers and of the other notables, until, at a given signal, a young captain of the guard, head high, chest out, marched forward, and with a whirling salute informed the Egyptian president that the IDF guard of honor was ready for his inspection. Walking with measured steps, President Sadat inspected the ranks, semi-bowed to the blue-and-white flag, and then, standing side by side with President Katzir and Prime Minister Begin, heard the band play his national anthem, followed by “Hatikva,” their contrasting harmonies punctuated by the thumps of a twenty-one-gun salute.
An armored limousine pulled up alongside the Egyptian president, but a pack of pugnacious newsmen mobbed the vehicle, overwhelming President Katzir, who was Sadat’s intended traveling companion for the ride to Jerusalem. He, being an elderly, genteel man, slow of gait, was pushed aside and would have been left behind were it not for the quick-wittedness of a security agent trotting alongside the car who saw him safely inside.
Thus did the presidential motorcade set off for the drive up to Jerusalem, where houses were bedecked with Israeli and Egyptian flags, and cheering crowds filled the streets. Here was history in the making. Strangers embraced in unbounded optimism, and the sound of wave upon wave of hurrahs swept through the windows of the King David Hotel, where the president of Egypt was lodging. Common folk stood vigil all through the night outside, as if silently entreating the man inside to be the bearer of good tidings that the wars were ended for good.
Most of the thirty-six hours of the Egyptian president’s stay were taken up with ceremonial and public events: a prayer service at the al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount, a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, meetings with representatives of the parliamentary parties, a working lunch with the prime minister and his senior colleagues, a festive dinner, and a joint press conference. At the center of it all, was his address to the Knesset.
That day, the crowded parliament chamber had an air of high, almost tear-jerking expectancy. All rose and applauded at length at the entrance of the president of Egypt accompanied by the president of Israel.
“I have come to the Knesset,” the visitor began, “so that together we can build a new life, founded on peace.”
The clapping rattled the rafters, and it continued during Sadat’s lengthy ode-to-peace, given in a stilted English. It was only when he moved on to list the conditions with which Israel would have to agree if it ever wanted Arab acceptance, conditions untenable to the overwhelming majority, that the chamber stilled to an intensely grave attentiveness. No, the president of Egypt told his audience, he would not sign a separate peace agreement. No, he would not enter into any interim arrangements. No, he would not bargain over a single inch of Arab territory. No, he would not compromise over Jerusalem. And no, there could be no peace without a Palestinian state.
Begin’s response was cordial but emphatic: His guest had known before embarking on his journey to Jerusalem exactly where Israel stood on each of these issues. He urged negotiations without prior conditions. With goodwill, he added, a redeeming formula could be found to resolve all the admittedly complex matters.
Perhaps in the course of their private conversations the two leaders had found ways to bridge this seemingly impassable chasm. Perhaps Sadat’s declared conditions for peace were not so set in stone, because after his plane had left en route to Cairo, an exuberant Begin beckoned me over, across the tarmac, and said, “I want to send off a cable to President Carter straight away,” and on the spot he began to dictate while walking to his car. As anyone who has tried it well knows, writing while walking is no easy feat, and my resultant scribble was so illegible I had tremendous difficulty deciphering it. Once I did, it came out like this:
Dear Mr. President – Last night President Sadat and I sat till after midnight. We are going to avert another war in the Middle East, and we made practical arrangements to achieve that quest. I will give you the details in a written report. The exchanges were very confidential, very far-reaching from his point of view. I am very tired. I work twenty hours a day. There are differences of opinion. We are going to discuss them. I have a request. You will plan another trip to various parts of the world. Please visit both Egypt and Israel during that trip. Sadat was very moved by the reception of our people. You will come to Israel and we will give you a wonderful time. So will Egypt. Give two days to Jerusalem and Cairo. Please take this into consideration.
That same night, the prime minister, exhausted though he was, received a four-man delegation of United Jewish Appeal philanthropists who had flown in from the U.S. especially to witness the historic event. Among them was an old acquaintance of mine from Columbus, Ohio – Gordon Zacks, commonly known as Gordie.
Gordie was a vigorous, enterprising, bighearted and idealistic man who not only gave generously but also thought innovatively. In 1975, while then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was shuttling back and forth between Cairo and Jerusalem in the arduous attempt to hammer out an interim Sinai agreement between Sadat and the then prime minister Rabin, he had embarked on a peacemaking mission of his own. He had flown to Egypt to identify a hundred projects in the fields of medicine, agriculture, irrigation, industry, and social welfare which he envisioned as possible joint Egyptian-Israeli enterprises. He saw these servinge as stepping-stones to peace, and carrying his proposal to Israel he asked me to arrange a meeting with Rabin.
Draft of the official written report sent to President Carter, reporting on President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, 23 November 1977
As Rabin had flicked through the bulky project folder, Gordie leaned across and said to him with enormous zest, “Yitzhak, listen to me, this is a no-lose deal.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” asked Rabin, slamming the folder shut without even pretending to examine a single one of its projects.
“Meaning, here is a way of testing Sadat’s true intentions toward peace.”
“Gordie, what world are you living in?” scoffed Rabin sarcastically, pushing the folder away as if its author was one of the proverbial babes in the wood.
“I’m telling you, this is a solid proposal,” countered Gordie indignantly. “Israel could offer to become a part of any or of all these projects. It could lay the foundations for the beginnings of a true dialogue.”
“And if the Egyptians say we don’t want you, as I’m sure they will?”
“Then what you do is publicly offer them two projects a week for fifty weeks. You will come out smelling of roses as the peacemaker, while Sadat will be seen as the intransigent one.”
“Crazy, naive American,” said Rabin, rising and extending a hand of farewell. “Gordie, old friend, this is just another public relations gimmick. Go back home to America and do what you do best: raise money for the United Jewish Appeal.”
And o
ff Gordie went, dejected.
Two years later, when Menachem Begin assumed the premiership, he asked to see all materials concerning Israel’s past peacemaking efforts with Egypt. Among the documents was Gordon Zacks’ proposal. It aroused enough curiosity for the premier to ask me who the man was, and when I told him of his UJA leadership role and his political activism on Israel’s behalf, he said, “His ideas are a fantasy, but they show daring and imagination. I’d like to meet him one day.”
I phoned this through to Gordie and within a week he was having lunch with the prime minister in the Olive Room at the King David Hotel.
“Mr. Zacks, have you ever been in jail?” asked Begin, while the first course was being served.
“No, Mr. Prime Minister,” answered Gordie testily, wondering what Begin was getting at, “I’ve never been in jail.”
“That’s a pity,” said Begin enigmatically, nibbling on his chicken. “You see, I have been in three different jails.”
Gordie Zacks sat back, stunned. “Three? How come?”
“The first time the communists arrested me was in Vilna. I was in the middle of a game of chess. When the Soviet agents dragged me off, I remember calling out to my colleague, ‘I concede the game. You win.’ The Soviets locked me up in one of their prisons. I was held there for six weeks, and all I could think about was getting out and going back home. The second prison was a forced labor camp – a gulag – in Siberia. By the sixth week, I dreamt of being back in that first prison cell. The third time, the Soviets put me in solitary confinement, and I dreamt of being back in that Siberian labor camp. So, you see, Mr. Zacks, my job as prime minister of Israel is to make sure that Jewish children dream the dreams of a free people, and never about prisons, or labor camps, or solitary confinement. I want to bring them peace, but in our region peace can be won only through strength.”
“So, how can I help?” asked Gordie, with his characteristic wholeheartedness.
“By telling me about your trip to Egypt, and the nature of the projects we might do together with the Egyptians once we have peace.”
It was no wonder, with that history, that Gordie Zacks displayed such excitement that night at the conclusion of Sadat’s visit, when Begin told him and his colleagues, “Friends, you will be pleased to hear that President Sadat and I have come to an understanding. We still have our differences, as you heard in his Knesset speech and in my response to him, but we agreed there will be no more war. I already wrote as much to President Carter. Yehuda” – this to me – “you sent off my cable?”
“Of course, as soon as I got back to Jerusalem from Ben-Gurion.”
“Then let’s call the president now – hear his reaction.”
“Do you have his number?” I asked.
Begin shook his head with an air of innocent ignorance.
“Then I’d better rush over to the office. I have it in the classified telephone directory,” I said.
“Why not call the international exchange, and ask for the White House switchboard,” suggested Gordie helpfully. “I’m pretty sure they have a general number.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and soon enough I got through to 001 202 456 1414. I was standing in the hallway, speaking to a woman at the White House switchboard, who thought I was a crank.
“I’m sorry, mister,” she said in a steely voice, “but you can’t speak to the president of the United States.”
“It’s not me, it’s the prime minister of Israel, Mr. Menachem Begin,” I said haughtily.
To which she responded dubiously, “Menakem who?”
“Begin.”
“Hold the line.”
“Hello, how can I help you?” This from a lady with a more gentle tone.
I explained the matter, and she said reasonably, “Please give me the prime minister’s number and we’ll get back to you.”
I checked the phone to see the number. There was none. How could there be? This was the prime minister’s residence, and his number was not on public display for prying eyes to see. So I called out to the prime minister, who was sitting in the lounge with his guests, “Mr. Begin, what’s your number?”
“I’ve no idea. I never phone myself,” he said. And then, moving into the hallway he shouted up the stairwell to his wife, “Alla, what’s our phone number?”
“Six six four, seven six three,” she shouted back.
I scribbled it down and repeated it to Washington.
“Thank you,” said the voice, “we’ll get back to you presently.” And, sure enough, within minutes, the phone rang and the voice said, “Please put the prime minister on the line. I’m putting the president through now.”
I handed over the receiver and stood aside to take notes. With no extension to hand, I could only record one side of the conversation, what Mr. Begin was saying.
“I hope you received my message, Mr. President,” he said beamingly.
Long pause.
“Oh yes, of course. Tomorrow I shall send you a full account, through our ambassador,” he said.
Another long pause.
“Certainly, indeed, Mr. President. Yes, there are immediate concrete results. President Sadat and I agreed to continue our dialogue on two levels, the political and the military. Such meetings will take place hopefully between our representatives soon. We made a solemn pledge at our joint press conference in Jerusalem that there will be no more wars between us. This is a great moral victory. And we agreed that there be no future mobilizations or troop movements on either side, so that our mutual commitment of ‘no more war’ may be given a practical expression on the ground.”
And then, shoulders back, head rising, forehead wrinkling, “No, no, Mr. President, I assure you – yes, yes – we still want to go to Geneva if you think it useful. It is all a matter of proper timing. President Sadat and I discussed this, but did not talk about an actual date. We exchanged ideas on the most substantial issues, and knowing we have differences of opinion we promised each other to discuss them further in the future. What is important is that the atmosphere throughout all our talks was friendly, frank and cordial.”
Then, face all a-grin, voice bubbling, “Mr. President, without you it could never have happened. So allow me to express my deepest gratitude for your magnificent contribution. Peace-loving people the world over, and the Jewish people for generations to come, will be forever in your debt for the role you played in helping to bring this historic visit about. We shall need your understanding and help in the future. God bless you, Mr. President. Goodbye,” and he hung up.
Privy to every word, his guests in the lounge fervently congratulated him on what was, assuredly, an affable conversation – all of them that is, but Gordie Zacks. Dumbfounded, he asked, “Why Mr. Prime Minister? Why? Why give Carter so much credit? Sadat came here because of what you did, and despite what Carter did, with his idea of Geneva with the Soviets.”
“What does it cost?” answered Begin with an impish expression. “I’m still going to need him, aren’t I? So giving him a bit of credit now might help us a little in the future. The important thing is that Sadat and I are agreed on making peace with or without Geneva.”
A week later, on 28 November, in an address to the Knesset, the prime minister summarized the historic visit, and the initiatives which had brought it about. He reiterated his gratitude to the United States, and explained why eight o’clock had been deliberately chosen as the hour for the Egyptian President’s arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport. He said:
President Sadat indicated he wished to come to us on Saturday evening. I decided that an appropriate hour would be eight o’clock, well after the termination of the Shabbat. I decided on this hour in order that there would be no Shabbat desecration. Also, I wanted the whole world to know that ours is a Jewish State which honors the Sabbath day. I read again those eternal biblical verses: “Honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” and was again deeply moved by their meaning. These words echo one of the most sanctified ideas in the history of mankind, and t
hey remind us that once upon a time we were all slaves in Egypt. Mr. Speaker: We respect the Muslim day of rest – Friday. We respect the Christian day of rest – Sunday. We ask all nations to respect our day of rest – Shabbat. They will do so only if we respect it ourselves.71
Author's corrections on initial draft of joint Egypt-Israel communiqué issued at the end of President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, 20 November 1977
Photograph credit: Israel Government Press Office
The author with President Sadat, Ismailia, Egypt, 25 December 1977
Chapter 40
Deadlock
Within a matter of weeks, all the protocols for the Egyptian-Israeli talks were in place, and meetings between the two sides began. An air of expectancy gripped the nation, as if some miracle was in the offing; the creation of a redemptive, instant peace treaty. But it was not to be. Like Sisyphus, whenever Menachem Begin pushed his boulder up the steep hill of negotiation, it always came rolling down again over his toes, with painful and prolonged consequences.
Anwar Sadat assumed that his grand reconciliatory gesture of coming to Jerusalem would be rewarded by a grand reconciliatory gesture on the part of Menachem Begin, in the form of a withdrawal on all fronts back to the pre–Six-Day War 1967 lines, and acquiescence in the establishment of a Palestinian state. Small wonder, then, that whenever the Egyptian and Israeli representatives met, they faced an unbridgeable abyss of misunderstanding and deadlock. Their joint committees broke up in angry dispute, indignant letters were exchanged, the Carter administration told American Jewish leaders that the Begin government was being unnecessarily obdurate, and the heavily censored Egyptian press treated Israel with disdain and its prime minister with malice. Begin was depicted as a Shylock.
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 51
