MOST TRAGEDIES EXIST in a small moment of consciousness. They create heartaches, they capture headlines, but history doesn’t change. Even very ghastly wars may turn out to be inconsequential in retrospect, interesting only to future academics. The fading of memory is one reason life moves on and generations don’t dwell forever on the same ancient quarrels. But there are other tragedies that have consequences far beyond the butcher’s toll, when one history ends and another begins.
Deir Yassin was one such moment.
On April 9, 1948, Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village of several hundred residents perched on a piney hilltop on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Under the UN partition plan that had been put forward five months earlier, Deir Yassin was scheduled to be part of the international zone for Jerusalem and its immediate environs. But Jerusalem was the great prize, and neither the Arabs nor the Jews were willing to let it escape their grasp.
The inhabitants of Deir Yassin made their living largely from quarrying the famous honey-colored Jerusalem limestone. Aware of their vulnerability, they forged a nonaggression pact with a neighboring community of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Givat Shaul, and they ejected Arab fighters seeking to use their village as a base. But nothing could shield them from the fact that Deir Yassin stood above a strategic roadway into the city, linking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In Begin’s mind—as well as Ben-Gurion’s—the little village of Deir Yassin represented a strategic threat to the new Jewish nation and its claims on the holy city.
Jerusalem itself was in the middle of a war between its Arab and Jewish residents, with Arab mobs looting shops and expelling Jews from the Old City, while Begin’s Irgun was bombing Arab military outposts and public facilities. Arabs killed fifty-two people in Ben Yehuda Street, and Irgun shot ten British soldiers. Refugees from both sides were streaming out of the city for safety. Jewish forces drove out the inhabitants of a Palestinian village named Qastel, on the road from Jerusalem to Jaffa, but it was recaptured by Arab militiamen, who slaughtered fifty Jewish prisoners and mutilated their corpses. The attack on Deir Yassin occurred the following morning.
A force of about 120 men, two-thirds of them from Irgun, and the rest from the Stern Gang, was sent to expel the Arabs from the village. Begin instructed that they were not to kill prisoners or women and children. At four thirty a.m. the attackers sent a sound truck to warn the villagers that Deir Yassin was about to be taken and they should run for their lives; however, the truck overturned in a ditch and apparently went unheard. In any case, a sentry saw the attackers and fired. The attackers had expected the villagers to flee; instead, those who had rifles or pistols began firing out of their windows into an onslaught of machine-gun fire. Enraged by the unexpected resistance, the attackers slowly advanced on the village from three sides, going from house to house, lobbing grenades through the doors and windows and dynamiting the houses. Villagers who now attempted to flee were shot down. Haganah, the official Jewish defense organization, reinforced the attackers with mortar and machine-gun fire. The fighting was over before noon, but the mopping up continued for several hours more. A Haganah officer described what followed as a “disorganized massacre” of the survivors. “Groups of men went from house to house looting and shooting, shooting and looting. You could hear the cries from within the houses of Arab women, Arab elders, Arab kids. I tried to find the commanders, but I did not succeed. I tried to shout and to hold them, but they took no notice. Their eyes were glazed. It was as if they were drugged, mentally poisoned, in ecstasy.”
It was only when the ultra-Orthodox Jews of neighboring Givat Shaul, with earlocks and wearing traditional Haredi dress, appeared and started yelling at the attackers, calling them gazlanim (thieves) and rozchim (murderers), that the massacre ended. “We had an agreement with this village,” they cried. “It was quiet. Why are you murdering them?” Haganah intelligence said that many of the victims were robbed and that Irgun men may have raped some of the Arab girls. About two hundred of the survivors, including old men, women, and children, were loaded on trucks and paraded through Jerusalem, where they were jeered at, spat upon, and stoned, then set free outside the Old City walls. Others—twenty to twenty-five men—were lined up in a quarry and shot.
Among the attackers, the toll of that awful day was five killed (all Irgun) and thirty-one injured—more than a quarter of the total force. The number of victims from the village was harder to determine. Immediate reports by Haganah, Arab officials, Irgun, and British Mandate officials put the figure at 254 killed. Later assessments are less than half that number, between 100 and 120. As Israeli historian Benny Morris would observe, each party had an interest in publicizing lurid stories about widespread rapes and mutilation, along with the exaggerated death toll: Haganah wanted to discredit the underground militias (even though it had authorized and participated in the attack); Irgun and Stern wanted to terrorize the Arabs and run them out of the country; and the Arabs and the British wanted to blacken the image of the Jews. In the event, all parties succeeded beyond expectations.
Ben-Gurion absolved himself of blame, calling the attack on Deir Yassin the work of “dissidents.” Begin, however, crowed over the “splendid act of conquest.” He wrote his commanders, “Tell the soldiers: you have made history in Israel with your attack and your conquest. Continue thus until victory. As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest.”
Later he would defend the massacre by saying that some of the villagers who attempted to flee wearing women’s dress were later revealed to have Iraqi military uniforms underneath. He provided no evidence to support that statement.
Deir Yassin was a decisive moment in the collapse of Palestinian society. The slaughter spread panic among Palestinians and led to the mass exodus that soon followed. In the month before the attack, 75,000 Arabs had left their homes; by two months later, 390,000 had fled. Jewish soldiers remarked on the eerie sight of untilled land and vacant farmhouses, and of the unattended shops filled with merchandise before the plunderers arrived. The Palestinians left behind ghost towns that would be blown up and bulldozed, or occupied by Jews, or—in the case of the more picturesque villages—turned into artist colonies. Most of the Palestinian refugees fled into neighboring Arab countries—and into a state of brokenness and resentment that lingers decade after decade. By the end of the war, when forced expulsion had become the policy of the new Jewish state, there were as many as 750,000 refugees. About four hundred Palestinian villages and towns were evacuated, most of them destroyed by Jewish forces. The goal was to scrape away any evidence of the presence of the Arab population and eliminate the possibility of their return. Place names—the roadways, valleys, mountains, wells, and wadis—were Hebraized, turning Aqir to Ekron, Asdud to Ashdod. Biblical names, some of doubtful provenance, were stamped on places that were designed to evoke the continuity of Jewish settlement. As for Deir Yassin, the remains of the village were turned into an Israeli psychiatric hospital called Kfar Shaul, with offices and patient rooms in what were formerly Palestinian homes.
AFTER SUNDOWN, Begin and Brzezinski played a final game of chess. This time Begin lost. At eight thirty p.m., he came to Carter’s cabin with Barak and Dayan. Vance was also present. Carter had said this would be the final session. As he did with Sadat, Carter listed the benefits to Israel if Camp David was successful: diplomatic exchanges, economic cooperation, the end of the Arab boycott, adequate security on all fronts, buffer zones with UN participation, a strong voice in the future of the West Bank, improvement of Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, guaranteed rights of Israelis to live and work on the West Bank, free passage through the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran, a better relationship with the U.S., and full peace with the only Arab country that posed a real threat to Israel.
Begin filled the air with protestations. He said that he would be willing to negotiate for another three months, and if the talks were successful in every other respect, then he would go to the Knesse
t for permission to move the settlements. Sadat would never accept that, Carter said; he wanted an agreement to remove the settlers now—before the negotiations were concluded. “Ultimatum!” Begin cried. “Political suicide!”
As painful as this discussion was for Begin, his options were narrowing. None of the appealing items on Carter’s list would be available to Israel if language could not be found that would allow Begin to surrender Sinai. Everyone in his delegation had been pressing him on the settlements. Sharon had called and given him his blessing. There was only one thing standing in the way, and that was Begin’s entire history. Finally he said he would agree to present to the Knesset within two weeks the following question: “If agreement is reached on all other Sinai issues, will the settlers be withdrawn?”
“That’s what I can do, no more,” Begin pleaded.
“Mr. Begin, what do you plan to say to Knesset members?” Carter asked.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Begin said. “I might not say anything.” However, he agreed to allow members of his party to vote their conscience. Carter knew that without Begin’s opposition, the question would surely pass. It proved to be a critical breakthrough.
The discussion continued late into the night. Rosalynn sent in crackers and cheese. They finally came to paragraph 1(c), the proposed resolution of the Palestinian question. Begin seemed resigned to the fact that there was going to be an agreement of some sort, and a few of the linguistic obstacles he had erected began to drop away. Just before coming to see Carter, for instance, he had wrestled with the phrase “recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian People.” It contained a moral judgment that no Israeli leader had ever agreed to. Now the most unyielding prime minister in the country’s history was being asked to concede that the rights of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine had been infringed and should be addressed.
“What is the ultimate importance of the term ‘legitimate rights’?” Begin had pondered aloud before his delegates, musing on the inherent redundancy. “If it is a right—that means it is legitimate. Can a right be illegitimate?” With Carter, Begin continued to balk until Barak proposed one other small change: adding “also” before the phrase about the legitimate rights of Palestinians. That allowed Begin to persuade himself that other rights mattered as well, such as Israel’s security claims in the West Bank. “By such verbal acrobatics,” Weizman observed, “Begin managed to come to terms with reality.”
In return for acknowledging the rights of Palestinians, however, Begin wanted substantial concessions. The text at that point said that “the results of the negotiations” would be based on UN Resolution 242. The principles of the resolution were listed, including withdrawal from territory acquired by war. Begin insisted that the phrase be changed to say merely that “the negotiations” should be based on 242, not the “results”—the difference being that the final agreement would not necessarily reflect the principles of the resolution. Begin also asked Carter to strike from the text the list of the principles of 242, thus eliminating the word “withdrawal” from the crucial paragraph. Carter conceded. These decisions would weaken the framework for future negotiations, but of course there were no Palestinians present to pose objection.
Midnight was approaching. Everyone was bleary and on edge. Because Carter had decreed that this would be the last negotiation at Camp David, they pressed on, into the knotted areas where no agreement had yet been found. There was one particular clause that Carter insisted upon having in the document: “After the signing of the Framework Agreement and during the negotiations, no new Israeli settlements will be established in the area, unless otherwise agreed. The issue of further Israeli settlements will be decided and agreed by the negotiating parties.” This was the fundamental link between the two agreements that Carter hoped to forge—the Egyptian-Israeli treaty and the eventual comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian problem. Begin objected strenuously. He said he might agree to a three-month suspension of settlement construction, but Carter was emphatic that the freeze would stay in effect for as long as negotiations continued.
In the process of hammering out the final terms of the agreement, the two sides agreed to deal with several controversial issues in an exchange of letters that would state the policy of each government without actually forming part of the main text. The side letters had no legal standing; mainly, they served to dodge irresolvable questions that stood in the way of an overall agreement. For instance, Begin drafted a letter containing his interpretation of the words “Palestinians” and “West Bank.” Carter had already promised Sadat a letter restating the American position on Jerusalem—a seemingly innocuous move that would prove to be another time bomb.
Perhaps they should have waited until morning to address these issues, when heads were clearer. Near the end of the marathon session, Carter thought that Begin had finally agreed to his demand that there would be no new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as long as negotiations with the Palestinians continued, and that he would state so in a side letter accompanying the final agreement. Based on that understanding, the Americans agreed to remove the crucial language of the settlement moratorium from the proposed accord.
There were five men in the room—Carter and Vance on one side; Begin, Dayan, and Barak on the other. Their memories of what was actually agreed to that night are at odds. Begin and his Israeli colleagues insist that the prime minister consented only to a three-month freeze. Begin later told the American ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis, that he had said he would consider Carter’s proposal overnight and give him an answer in the morning. In any case, when the meeting finally broke up shortly before one in the morning, Carter believed that he had brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt that was linked to a comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian problem. Begin’s supposed moratorium on settling the occupied West Bank would have given the Israelis a strong impetus to bring the dispute to an end. But that was not to happen.
Day Thirteen
Menachem Begin and Yechiel Kadishai holding photos from the peace talks, given to them by Jimmy Carter on their last day at Camp David
AT SEVEN FIFTEEN A.M., Rosalynn was preparing to return to the White House for a reception for the Hispanic community and a concert by the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Jimmy came into the bathroom where she was dressing. “I think we’ve gotten everything we wanted,” he told her. “I’m going to try to get Begin and Sadat together today. They haven’t seen each other since we went to Gettysburg.”
The news surprised her. She had nearly been physically ill when Jimmy told her just the day before that a Sinai agreement was out of reach, and she was still feeling unwell on this final morning. The emotional battering was almost unbearable, even when the news was positive. As she left, Carter reminded her, “Don’t smile because they’ll think we’re gonna get an agreement, and don’t frown because they’ll think we’re not gonna get the treaty.” That was the same tightrope she had been treading for nearly two weeks.
Carter brought the happy news to Sadat on their morning walk. “I got the settlement freeze,” he said. He reassured Sadat that the Knesset would approve the withdrawal of the settlers from Sinai, as long as Begin didn’t stand in the way. “Okay, let’s go ahead and sign,” Sadat said. Carter went back to his cabin to compose the final American draft.
When Mohamed Kamel came out of the dining lodge after breakfast, he noticed an unusual amount of activity in the conference room next door. A long table was set up with three chairs in front of the flags of the three nations. Hermann Eilts, the American ambassador to Egypt, told Kamel that the signing ceremony by the foreign secretaries was to take place that afternoon.
Kamel blurted out, “I have a problem!”
“What is it?” Eilts asked.
“I have resigned.”
“Good God, what happened?”
“You can guess what happened because I made it clear several months ago that I would do so unless we reached an acceptable agreeme
nt,” Kamel said. “The problem is not my resignation, but rather that I have promised Sadat not to announce it at present. And I insist on not attending the signing ceremony. I don’t know what to do!”
Eilts said he would think it over and promised not to tell anyone else. An hour later, he called to say that the ceremony was now going to take place later that day in Washington, not at Camp David. Kamel’s absence would be even more conspicuous.
Sadat summoned Kamel to his cabin, where other members of the delegation had assembled. The president greeted him warmly and indicated that he should sit next to him. Despite Sadat’s apparently upbeat mood, a gloomy sense of impending catastrophe hovered over the Egyptian delegates. Nabil el-Arabi, the legal director of the Foreign Ministry, observed that there were many obligations for Egypt in the agreement and no written commitment from Begin about withdrawing from the West Bank. He urged Sadat not to sign.
“I heard you,” Sadat said. He was smoking his pipe, which always gave him an aspect of serenity, as he retreated behind clouds of tobacco in some remote psychic hideaway. But now he grew petulant. “I don’t want you one day to claim I didn’t listen,” he continued. “All you said went in this ear and out the other. You know why? Because all of you are plumbers! You don’t do anything with anything! I am a statesman. I know my objective. I want to release territory. If I don’t, your grandchildren will be fighting in Sinai, and there will be war after war.”
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