The prime minister, his face worn, his skin as gray as the leaden November sky outside, rose to shake Yosef Burg’s hand, but Burg restrained him, saying, “It is not customary in a house of mourning for the bereaved to express thanks.”
“Nevertheless, you have my gratitude,” said Begin. “Your words are a great comfort.”
“Time for ma’ariv,” somebody cried out, and as befitted the son of the deceased, Benny Begin led the prayers of the evening service. To the uninitiated, of which there were many that night, the words of the congregants must have sounded like a Babel of mutterings and chantings, punctuated every now and again by a loud “Oomeyn” [Amen]. At one point, the chattering of the non-congregants grew so loud it elicited a reproachful “Sh-sh-sh!” from the congregants. However, all stood in solemn silence as Benny Begin rounded off the service by reciting the mourner’s Kaddish, which opens with a vision of God becoming great in the eyes of all nations, and ends with a supplication for peace, to which all chorused “Amen!”
When she heard that Aliza Begin had died, Mrs. Jehan Sadat, widow of the slain President Anwar Sadat, picked up the phone in her Cairo home, with its spectacular view of the Nile, and placed a call to Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, Moshe Sasson. She invited him for coffee, and Sasson, a man with vast experience in Arab affairs assumed, correctly, that the former first lady of Egypt wished to speak to him privately.
Though more than a year had passed since her husband’s assassination, Jehan Sadat remained a highly popular figure among influential circles in Egyptian society, thanks to her sharp mind, her stunning beauty, and her continuing outspoken and courageous activism on behalf of Egyptian women. Given the autocratic nature of Arab society, and the fact that Jehan Sadat’s image far outshone that of Mrs. Mubarak, it was certainly possible that President Hosni Mubarak was keeping a watchful eye on her comings and goings.
“I have a letter of condolence for your prime minister,” said Jehan, upon receiving Ambassador Sasson. “I would appreciate it if you could communicate it as soon as possible.” She handed him an envelope.
“Of course,” said Sasson, pocketing it.
“Coffee?” asked Mrs. Sadat, as a maid walked in.
“Please.”
Jehan Sadat felt at ease with Moshe Sasson, not only because his Arabic was refined and absolutely fluent, but more so because she knew her husband had established a close relationship with him.
“I imagine Mr. Begin must be taking his loss very hard,” she said compassionately. “They were very close, I know.”
“I’m told his grief is all the greater because he feels guilt at having been out of the country when she passed away,” said Sasson.
“You know,” said Jehan, in a confessional tone, “I knew instinctively that my husband was going to die. I remember sitting here in Cairo, with my grandson perched on my knee, watching the live television broadcast of Anwar’s plane landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, and I felt terrified. I just knew he would be killed for what he was doing. I did not know when or where it would happen, or who would pull the trigger. All I knew was that my days on earth with my husband were numbered.”
The ambassador put down his cup, and in a voice that was both soothing and respectful, said, “Since you raise the matter, allow me to share an episode. About two months before your husband’s assassination, we were sitting together alone and he suddenly turned to me and said, ‘Moshe, I feel my meeting with my Maker is very close.’ ‘Why are you saying that?’ I asked him. But he merely continued puffing on his pipe and gave no answer.”
Jehan Sadat offered him a small and sad smile, and said: “I had an absurd argument with him. I knew he’d originally stipulated in his will that he wanted to be buried on Mount Sinai. He’d told Mr. Begin that he planned to build there a mosque, a church, and a synagogue. A beautiful idea! But when he told me in all seriousness that that was where he wanted to be buried, I said to him, Anwar, who of your children – meaning the Egyptian people – will want to climb up to the top of Mount Sinai to visit you? He gave me no answer, but he understood what I was saying. The trouble was that he had not yet altered his will when he was assassinated, and it was I who insisted he be buried here in Cairo, by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”101
Returning to his embassy, Ambassador Sasson summoned his chief security officer and requested that the courier designated to carry the diplomatic pouch to Jerusalem that evening take pains to ensure that Mrs. Sadat’s letter reach the prime minister as speedily as possible. Thus it was that early the following morning, as Menachem Begin was wrapping away his tefillin [phylacteries] at the end of the morning service in his shiva house, Yechiel Kadishai handed him the letter. It was written in Jehan Sadat’s own bold hand, and it said:
Dear Menachem,
I imagine your shock and feelings of helplessness when the news was broken to you of Aliza’s cruel death. A lifetime of shared hopes and disappointments, of joy and sadness, suddenly smashed in a moment. Surely, only those who have suffered in the same way can understand fully what you are feeling now. Let me add my own heartfelt tribute to a grief which nothing will ever truly brush away from your heart. These are times when sympathy is not enough, but please accept the spontaneous overflow of my feelings for a great lady who I grew to love and respect. And please accept the hand of friendship and solidarity in this moment of utter loneliness which you will find difficult to live with.
Remember, I too have had to travel through the bitter valley of shock and loneliness and I well remember your kindness and genuine sympathy towards me little more than a year ago. I too have felt what you are feeling now, and I too have had to find reasons to overcome despair. We share a belief in Divine Providence and that is one of the great consolations of all the bereaved. But you and my late husband shared as well a deep commitment to the cause of peace and I am certain that we owe it to the memory of our dearest to continue to serve the ideal which inspired them. Let us live, warmed by the memory of past happiness and sustained by the hope that we in our own turn may leave the world a better and a kinder place for generations to come.
Take comfort, dear friend. I know that Anwar El Sadat had great confidence in your own faith in peace and human concord, and he may have differed with you on the means towards a noble end, but I am certain you were both dedicated to the same ideal of peace.
Jehan Sadat, 15 November 1982.
Shortly thereafter, on 8 December, after a restless night, the prime minister pulled on his dressing gown, and with the half-light of dawn he composed his reply in a meticulous hand. He wrote:
Dear Jehan,
Thank you from the heart for your personal message. I will remember it all my life. In your words I have found real friendship, humanity and profound compassion. Since we met in other days for all of us you won our respect and admiration. Aliza and I often talked about you. Always remembering the courage and vision of my unforgettable friend Anwar, Aliza and I used to say to each other: but Jehan is a personality in her own right. You proved it, dear friend, to everybody for years. And all those who saw you in pain and suffering bowed their head before your dignity.
Now bereavement struck my dear ones and myself. I met Aliza when she was a young girl. Except for a period of separation, as a result of my arrest in Russia, we were together for more than forty years – a lifetime. Her devotion to the cause for which we fought and suffered was limitless. She was prepared for every sacrifice, and in adversity was fearless. In fact, she suffered more than her husband: worry was her inseparable companion for many years. But she never complained. And in such circumstances she took care of the children and raised a happy family.
Aliza helped many people who needed help. During the last years we didn’t even know the scope of her humanitarian work. Now, more and more details are revealed to us, from what people wrote to us or came to tell us during the days of mourning and expressions of sympathy. I know that in this humanitarian work you had much in common. I know that this good human work deepe
ned the friendship between you and her. She herself told me about your common visits to the suffering, and the consolation you brought to them.
Great is our loss. I have to accept in humility and even be grateful for the years of happiness we spent together.
Thank you for your wonderful letter. We shall continue to share the memory of our dear ones who left us. You and I shall always believe in the good, just cause of peace for which we all made so great endeavors. God bless you dear friend.
Yours wholeheartedly,
Menachem102
Last page of condolence letter from Jehan Sadat to Prime Minister Menachem Begin after Aliza’s death, 15 November 1982
Prime Minister Begin’s reply to Jehan Sadat’s letter of condolence, 8 December 1982
Photograph credit: Yitzhak Harari
A bearded Prime Minister Begin sits solitary at the government table in the Knesset during the shloshim – the ritual month-long mourning period for his wife – November, 1982
Chapter 57
“I Cannot Go On”
The months that followed Aliza’s death were a period of intense trial for Menachem Begin. Even after the shiva ended, he chose to remain at home for the further three weeks of intense mourning which Jewish tradition prescribes even though, by custom, he could have resumed his normal duties. He could not bring himself to leave the house. Still unshaven, he then got a rash on his face that prevented him shaving, so he continued to stay at home in a deep funk, saying he did not want to be seen at the office or in public in such a state. When he did return to the office at the beginning of January 1983, he gave fewer interviews, met fewer people, attended fewer cabinet meetings, engaged in fewer negotiations, and when he did participate, he tended to deal with matters more in the macro than in the micro, passively. Indeed, as time went by, he became less and less accessible to all but his closest advisers; I would bring him drafts of letters for approval a few times a week, but he hardly glanced at them. He appended his signature in a listless sort of way, and I would leave without saying a word. Yechiel urged us to push him into activity by setting him appointments in the hope of getting him focused, and some of us quietly sounded out Lewis about rescheduling a Washington trip. But, clearly, the vitality of his premiership was hemorrhaging.
This was manifestly and embarrassingly apparent when, on 15 June 1983, he decided to answer in person a provocative opposition motion to establish yet another commission of inquiry on the Lebanon war, this time to investigate the effectiveness of the government’s decision-making throughout the hostilities.
Mr. Begin had difficulty climbing the steps to the podium, so he allowed a steward to cup his elbow to help him up. Once there, leaning against the long-familiar pedestal, he became something of his old self again, as if energized by the magic of the spot where, for years, he had been clever, quick and intrepid.
Finding his words easily, he began, “Mr. Speaker, the cabinet resolved on Operation Peace for Galilee with but one aim: to ensure that the inhabitants of the Galilee wouldn’t have to run to their shelters any longer, and deadly terror would cease raining down upon them day and night. I am truly amazed at opposition members who, by their statements, seek to make people forget that this was the goal. At issue” – he thumped the lectern – “was an operation of legitimate national self-defense. We were facing the destruction of Kiryat Shmona, God forbid, or the ruin of Nahariya, heaven forefend. The danger was real. The inhabitants of Galilee were hostage to enemy rockets. Not any longer!”
He paused to take a deep breath, but when he resumed, his tone grew progressively weaker, his voice huskier, and his delivery less forthright.
“Is this the first war in which we encountered problems?” he asked the House. “Even in the most justified and best planned military operations, complications and hitches arise. So why do my opposition colleagues always try to create the impression that at some point in the Lebanon campaign Israel suddenly became the aggressor? What will yet another commission of inquiry accomplish?”
His voice faded away as he continued, and losing track, he fumbled with his notes, repeated phrases, and mumbled, “So yes…so yes…what will another inquiry…what will yet another inquiry commission accomplish? We already carried out all the recommendations of one commission that inquired, and it was not a simple thing to do. And now the opposition wants another? What for?…For what? To undermine national morale? To give our enemies aid and comfort? Surely…surely…this is a time…surely this is a time to stand together, not to establish more inquiry commissions.”
Those listening to him were struck at how tired he looked as he rambled on. The fire in his belly was doused, his once incisive oratory stale, his eloquence washed out. Increasingly, he was resorting to vague rhetoric and tired gibes, stripped of the ardor that had once thrilled supporters and angered opponents.
He exuded deep melancholy as he descended from the podium to return to his seat at the head of the government bench. And though the opposition motion was defeated, it took fortitude for this infirm, prematurely old man to preserve his dignity as he shuffled out of the Knesset chamber to his customary table in the dining room, there to pick at a meager plate of vegetables instead of the usual bowl of steaming chicken soup his wife had prescribed as mandatory midday fare.
Without Aliza to take care of him, Menachem Begin was in physical decline, and his appetite was gone. The despair he felt at her death had been awful enough to endure, but it was cruelly compounded by a sense of lost opportunity and the disintegration of his political dreams about peace with Lebanon. His unmarried daughter, Leah, now living with him, took care of him devotedly, but could be no substitute for her mother. These were days when the prime minister’s deeply wrinkled face sometimes looked emaciated. His neck was just skin and bones. His shirt was too big on him, and his suit hung on him pathetically. He looked so thin and frail that his head seemed excessively large. At seventy, he looked eighty.
Five days after the Knesset debate, on 20 June, Yechiel Kadishai strode buoyantly into the prime minister’s room to say that Ambassador Samuel Lewis had called for an appointment to renew the presidential invitation to Washington. Begin responded to this with a sudden and unexpected spurt of energy. “Yes, by all means, I shall see him. Make the appointment.”
On the following day Lewis entered with a hearty “How good it is to see you again, Mr. Prime Minister.” Begin rose unsteadily from behind his desk to return the warm handshake, and if the ambassador was taken aback at what he saw – the sunken face, the suit that hung loosely on Begin’s skeletal frame – he succeeded in camouflaging it remarkably well. Equally, Mr. Begin pulled himself together sufficiently to invite his guest to take a seat, and gave him a warm smile that belied the misfortunes which had come crashing down on him like an avalanche over the past months. For an instant Menachem Begin’s commanding magnetism returned, and the ambassador sweetened the moment by telling him, “Mr. Prime Minister, President Reagan has asked me to tell you that it is his desire to bring the relationship back to what it was before the Lebanon war. This is why he is eager to meet you.”
Genuinely moved, the premier said, “Please thank the president for his invitation and for the goodwill behind it, which I heartily reciprocate.”
“I shall certainly do that. It really has been unfortunate that because of Lebanon the relationship between the two of you has become a little distant.”
The tension in Begin’s jaw betrayed his deep feeling when he replied, “You will recall, Sam, that this was why I flew to the States last November. My purpose was to patch things up. But then, as you know, while I was in Los Angeles my wife – ”
Pain flickered in his eyes, and Lewis returned his look with a compassionate nod, and then stared at his shoes.
“ – I honestly believed then, as I do now,” continued Begin, “that if the president and I could sit down together we would be able to iron out all misunderstandings.”
“Which is why he really is looking forward to
seeing you after so long,” said Lewis spiritedly. “He would like to know what dates might be possible. We were thinking, perhaps, sometime in mid-July, in about three weeks.”
The prime minister offered the ambassador a distracted nod and said, “I shall examine my schedule and let you know.”
“That’s fine!”
There followed a morose pause, the prime minister retreating back into his grief-stricken reminiscences. It was only broken when Lewis made reference to the impending changes of senior White House officials designated to deal with the affairs of the region – Bud McFarlane was to replace Philip Habib as the president’s special envoy to the Middle East.
“I see,” said Begin distantly, without amplification of any sort.
This struck Lewis as odd. The prime minister had spent countless hours in assiduous deliberation, intense negotiation and, yes, occasional spats, with Philip Habib, a professional, tireless, frequently harassed, and by now totally exhausted presidential envoy. He had been in the thick of things throughout the Lebanon war, valiantly putting himself and his health at risk in the effort to reach truces and ceasefires while conducting the tricky negotiations which led to the expulsion of Arafat’s Plo forces from Beirut. Phil Habib had followed this up by helping mediate the attempted long-term Israel-Lebanon peace arrangement which at one point had seemed so tantalizing close. Surely, thought Lewis, after such a rigorous engagement, the prime minister would have a little more to say about Philip Habib’s departure than a mere “I see.” Where, he wondered, was Begin’s characteristic cross examination, his probing for the finer points that always fascinated him? His perfunctory “I see” made him sound like a passive and unengaged observer in what, surely, had been one of the most hectic, intensive and challenging chapters of his entire stewardship.
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 72
