And there was something else besides that distressed the prime minister as we walked to the Jerusalem Great Synagogue that day. Although the Peace for Galilee campaign had ended to his satisfaction, the fact that Israeli troops were still engaged deep inside Lebanon, with mounting casualties, had caused ever-increasing numbers of the public to regard the war without conviction. Angry and frustrated by the souring of events – what was originally conceived as a brief campaign had stretched from June into July, August, and now September – Israel was enduring protests and demonstrations almost daily. One group of antiwar protestors had mounted an around-the-clock vigil directly in front of the prime minister’s residence, with a huge placard displaying the rising toll of the fallen, which, by that Rosh Hashanah, totaled more than six hundred. Whenever the newest casualty figures were brought to Begin’s attention we, his staff, had marked his deep sorrow. His heart broke silently and a dull throb of grief possessed his spirit. “It’s as though I do not have a home anymore,” he told Dr. Burg wearily, speaking of the demonstrators outside his house. “It’s as though I’m living on the street.”
“I shall have them removed,” declared Burg, who possessed the ministerial authority to do so.
“Under no circumstances,” said Begin.
“But they are such a disturbance to you. In no other country are demonstrators allowed to demonstrate right in front of a prime minister’s house.”
“It is their democratic right,” Begin had insisted. “Let them stay. I only pray they don’t disturb the neighbors too much.”
It was perhaps natural that Begin should accuse the leader of the Labor opposition, Shimon Peres, for the deepening civic rift. He had charged him with being more interested in pulling down national pillars than pondering the rights and wrongs of the war, the first in which partisan political divisions were ripping the country apart.
The man Peres wanted to bring down most, as, indeed, did some of Mr. Begin’s own cabinet, was Defense Minister Sharon. To his antagonists, Sharon’s purposes were as clear as that of a fox in a hen coop. The warrior who had long earned a reputation for boldness, decisiveness, and tactical skill was now being depicted as a satanic militarist. The Labor opposition had fingered him for every foul-up, and now they were demanding he be dismissed or be made to resign for mishandling the war and for allowing the Christian militia to enter Sabra and Shatila, even though he could not have possibly foreseen the terrible consequences.
“There will be no resignations and no dismissals,” said the prime minister as we mounted the steps to the sanctuary. Once inside, he immediately calmed down, as if surrendering to the embrace of its sanctity. Wrapped in his prayer shawl, he worshipped with quiet passion, reading from a tattered prayer book that had been given to him as a bar mitzvah gift, pronouncing the words in the soft Ashkenazi intonations of his Warsaw youth. And when the cantor and the choir reached the pinnacle of the service in chanting the mournful prayer, “U’Netaneh Tokef Kedushat Hayom” [Let us tell how utterly holy is this day for it is awesome and terrible], his eyes glistened, and he swayed back and forth in profound piety.
Slowly and sorrowfully, the cantor came to the wrenching and brokenhearted incantation, “On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: How many shall pass away, and how many shall be born. Who shall live and who shall die.” Sighs and sobs swelled from the throats of the Jews in those pews where Menachem Begin stood, as the cantor’s voice swelled in an agony of reverence, his eyes closed, his body swaying, his hands stretched out and up: “Who shall perish by the sword and who by wild beast, who by famine and who by thirst…who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued. Who shall be at rest and who tormented. Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low. Who shall prosper and who shall be impoverished.”
In answer to the suspended verdict of this dirge, the cantor rose on his toes in a finale of trembling and exulted conviction, and cried out at the top of his voice, in thunderous unison with the entire congregation, many of whom had endured the torment of the Holocaust and the bereavement of Israel’s wars, “U’teshuvah u’tefillah u’tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’a ha’gzeirah” [But repentance, prayer and charity shall avert the severe decree].
Whereupon, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder as if from on High, but it was only Zabush, chief of the prime minister’s security detail that day.
“There’s an ugly demonstration building up outside,” he whispered into my ear. “You will have to take the prime minister out through the rear exit. We’ll cut through the back alleyway and across the street to his home.”
I transmitted this discreetly to Mr. Begin, behind whom I was sitting, but he gave no sign of acknowledgement. He was bent over his prayer book, steeped in the cantorial renditions and the congregational recitations, mouthing each supplication with the fervor of a believer. Upon the service’s culmination, in buoyant optimism that prayers will indeed be answered, multitudes of congregants swarmed around him to wish him a Shanah Tovah – a happy new year.
Beaming, he shook every hand, and when he finally took my arm to go, Zabush hissed, “Follow me.” I did, leading the prime minister through the last remaining clusters of well-wishing congregants, and toward the synagogue’s rear exit.
“Where are you taking me?” demanded Begin, halting mid-stride.
Zabush explained.
“Under no circumstances will I go out this way,” he retorted angrily. “I will not slink out of the synagogue. I will leave the way I came, through the front door, demonstration or no demonstration.”
Zabush spoke into his walkie-talkie urgently, alerting his squad outside. As the prime minister emerged into the synagogue’s forecourt, a horde of demonstrators tried to crush in upon him. Spittle, clenched fists, and cries of “Murderer!” assaulted the sanctity of the day as anxious policemen and guards pushed, kicked, and elbowed the baying crowd, cutting a channel through the crush to form a close cordon around us, while swarms of reporters recorded the pandemonium.
The prime minister’s bespectacled, bony features showed nothing but boldness, but rage was swelling within him. I could feel it in the sharp nip of his fingers pinching into my arm as he leaned on me. He was deliberately limping at an artificially slow pace in a show of defiance that made my every nerve shudder.
All the frustrations over the long Lebanese war seemed to explode on that Rosh Hashanah outside the Great Synagogue, as protestors yelled over and over again, “Begin is a murderer!” Some surged ahead to join the pickets encamped across the street from the prime minister’s home, and as Begin advanced toward it at a snail’s pace, encircled by ring upon ring of policemen and bodyguards, he leaned so hard against me that my arm went numb. Once safely inside, the protesters yelled at him to come outside again. “Come outside, man of blood,” they roared. “Come outside, killer of Sabra and Shatila!”
I left Menachem Begin to limp upstairs alone to his private quarters and his ailing wife, whereupon I beat a quick retreat through a side door to join my family, who had all the while been witness to this Rosh Hashanah horror.
Predictably, the demonstrators clamored for an official commission of inquiry to pass judgment as to what had truly happened at Sabra and Shatila. Thus was the Kahan Commission born, named after its chairman, the president of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahan. It was composed of persons of high repute who subjected those appearing before them, the prime minister included, to a most exhaustive, though always polite, cross examination.
The commission issued its report in February, 1983, and concluded that Ariel Sharon, as minister of defense, carried an “indirect responsibility” for the atrocity at Sabra and Shatila by allowing the Christian Phalangists to enter the camps. At that point, it was up to the government to decide what to do – to reject the Commission’s findings in whole or in part, or to accept them. The cabinet sat for three consecutive sessions to determine its position, while Ariel Sharon waited impatiently through a parade of interminable monologues, as each minis
ter was invited to speak his piece. When the vote finally came, it was sixteen to one in favor of adopting the commission’s findings in their entirety.
With his marvelous incapacity to admit error, Sharon utterly rejected this stigmatization. Controversy raged for years after, between critics and partisans alike, over the Kahan Commission findings, and Sharon’s guilt or innocence, and over the true nature of Menachem Begin’s feelings toward him. What is undisputable is that Begin accepted Sharon’s resignation as defense minister, although he did retain him in the cabinet, as a minister without portfolio.
However harsh the self-examination to which Israel subjected itself in probing the facts of Sabra and Shatila, nothing seemed to help in stemming the tide of overseas criticism and condemnation, even from some of the Jewish State’s staunchest supporters. One such was Senator Alan Cranston who, days after the massacre, issued a public letter addressed to Prime Minister Begin in which he wrote, inter alia:
Photograph credit: Israel Government Press Office
Prime Minister Begin testifying before the Kahan Commission on the Sabra and Shatila massacre, 8 November 1982
I did not condemn Israel’s initial move into Lebanon for the avowed purpose of protecting Israel’s citizens against repeated PLO attacks launched from that country. And I refrained, despite deep misgivings, from commenting publicly on your siege of Beirut and your entry into its western section. I am reluctant to criticize a treasured friend and ally in the midst of a military struggle. But the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children is another matter. It will be some time before we know who was to blame for the massacre. We may never know. […] Perhaps the most somber consequence of the current strife in Lebanon is the dimming of the inspiring moral beacon which shone so brightly from beleaguered Israel.99
Cold anger drove Menachem Begin’s pen across a sheet of paper in response to the Senator’s letter. In sentences that were unmarked by the slightest erasure and second thought, he wrote:
The whole campaign of blaming Israel for the massacre, of placing moral responsibility on Israel seems to me, an old man who has seen so much in his lifetime, to be almost unbelievable, fantastic and utterly despicable. After the September 14 assassination of president-elect Bashir Gemayel we decided to move the IDF into West Beirut to prevent a Christian revenge of the Muslim population. It never occurred to anyone dealing with the Lebanese military units which subsequently entered the Shatila and Sabra camps that they would perpetrate a massacre. The first horrific truth is that Arabs murdered Arabs. The second truth is that Israeli soldiers stopped the carnage. And the third truth is that if the current libelous campaign against Israel should go on without a reaction of outrage by decent men – yes, outrage – then within a matter of weeks or months everyone everywhere will have gotten the impression that it was an Israeli military unit which perpetrated the horrible killings.100
How right he was. Surf the Internet and see.
Prime Minister Begin in talks with Sec. of State Shultz and Ambassador Lewis, with author
Photograph credit: Ya’acov Sa’ar & Israel Government Press Office
Chapter 56
“To Everything There Is a Season”
It’s time I met President Reagan again,” said the prime minister, in a resigned voice. “There are misunderstandings that only I can clear up. If I could just sit down with him face to face I’m sure I could convince him that we were in no way blameworthy for Sabra and Shatila, and that the Lebanon war was a well considered and justifiable action. What we did was as much in the American interest as our own – to set Lebanon free of the Plo thugs, and clip Syria’s wings. Surely Reagan can be made to see that?”
“According to what I hear from Sam Lewis,” I answered, in a futile attempt to cheer him up, “there are people in the administration who are angry, but not – ”
“I’m well aware of that,” interjected Begin in a sapped voice.
“ – but not the president. He’s unhappy about the war and upset about your having turned down his peace initiative, but he still looks upon us as a barrier to Soviet expansionism, and remains an admirer of Israel. What’s more, he retains his high regard for you personally.”
“That’s nice to hear,” said Begin sullenly, and he stared ahead of him, as if some troubling spectacle was taking place in his mind.
“I have to rebuild the personal relationship and confidence not only with the president but also with those around him,” he murmured. “And I must speak to the Jews as well.”
This exchange took place in mid-October, 1982. The Kahan Commission’s findings would not be announced for several months, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre was still a fresh wound. It was triggered by a report I had prepared on Diaspora Jewish attitudes toward Israel following the massacre. In certain important quarters they had soured alarmingly. Begin studied the three-page report for several minutes and emitted a long sigh. Finally, he looked up and in a weary voice repeated, “Yes, I have to speak to the Jews.”
There was no self-pity in his voice, but the manner of his speech indicated that his troubles and infirmities were growing upon him. He had lost weight. His face was worn, devoid of its usual commanding expression. His public speeches had become perfunctory. He was hurting from the condemnation of antagonists over his Lebanon war policy, frustrated that the Lebanese turn of events had deprived him of another peace treaty, and physically drained by the cumulative attrition of his past frailties – heart trouble, a minor stroke, the broken hip, and perhaps most of all, his constant anxiety over the health of his beloved wife and lifelong companion, Aliza. By this time she was hooked up to a respirator at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, having suffered an acute attack of her chronic asthma. Once, twice a day sometimes, he would repair to the hospital to sit by her bedside. His detractors were beginning to make the claim that the prime minister of Israel was becoming immobilized due to a serious depression.
Pondering his misfortunes, he did seem to be sinking into a cocoon of melancholy. Yechiel tried to bolster his spirits by suggesting he arrange some visits to the development towns, where he was very much loved – a suggestion he had been making repeatedly. But Begin shut down on the topic and said he didn’t want to hear any more about it. “The important thing for me now is to see Reagan,” he reiterated.
Grasping at this intent as if it was proof positive that the prime minister of Israel was functioning perfectly well, Yechiel Kadishai said he’d get onto the matter right away with Ambassador Lewis.
“But don’t fix a definite date yet,” cautioned Begin. “I won’t leave the country while Alla is in hospital.” Then, to me, with a restored air of professional poise, “Start thinking about what Jewish forums in America I should be addressing. We have to get our message across to them, our own people, first and foremost. And when you bring my greetings tonight to the Bonds leadership at the King David Hotel, tell them what that message is. And tell Sam Rothberg I really am sorry I can’t do it myself.”
That night was a big night at the King David. The elated greetings and excited laughter of the cocktail throng in the lobby made it seem as if nothing could be more euphoric than being together in that place, which was still the most important networking axis in the Jewish world. Anybody who was anybody passed through the portals of the King David at one time or another. On this particular night, Israel Bonds big shots from all over the world were straining their voices as they greeted each other under the lobby’s high ceiling, rich with ancient Semitic motifs that evoked the glorious period of the legendary King David.
I had known many of these big Bonds buyers for years, so it took me a while to squeeze my way through the boisterous groups, returning “hellos” and hearty handshakes as I inched my way forward in search of Sam Rothberg, world chairman of the Bonds organization, and a dear personal friend. Eventually I found him amid the crush, good-naturedly teasing an overdressed, aging lady who was attired in a sparkling evening gown as well as winged sunglasses. “Gloria,” he
was saying to her, eyes twinkling mischievously, “you look stunning! And it’s a good thing you remembered your sunglasses, because sometimes late at night here in Jerusalem the sun gets really, really bright, and then it snows.”
In spite of herself, the woman laughed richly along with Sam, but his face turned sober when he saw me. We retreated to the privacy of the adjacent reading room.
“How is he?” he asked.
“He sends his personal apologies. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me tonight as his understudy.”
“That’s fine, but why won’t he see me privately as he always does?”
“He’s hardly seeing anyone. He’s not in the best of spirits. It’s happened before. His doctors say he’ll snap out of it. He always has in the past.”
“Peres tells me he’s dysfunctional.”
“Nonsense! He’s low, but he has all his wits about him. I’ve just come from a meeting where he decided it’s time for him to visit America again – to see the president and speak to the Jews. That’s not the talk of a dysfunctional prime minister. He’s concerned about Jewish support after Sabra and Shatila, and that’s what I’m going to be talking to the audience about tonight.”
“Good! When does he plan to come to America?”
“As soon as possible, I guess – once Mrs. Begin is out of hospital and the appointment with the president is set.”
“Tell him to come to Los Angeles.”
“Why Los Angeles?”
“Because he’s forever meeting the Jewish macher s in New York, but Los Angeles is the fastest-growing Jewish community in America, and it’s been a long time since he’s been there. In mid-November we’re planning the biggest international banquet ever – two thousand people: Hollywood stars, political big shots, the lot. And if he comes as guest of honor I can guarantee him massive exposure and top notch meetings. It’ll be worth the effort. Tell him I said so.”
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 70
