by Yaël Dayan
Sadat declared in November ’77 that the October ’73 war was the last war. In May ’78, Sadat said that the October war was not the last war between Israel and the Arabs. In December ’77, Father met with Dr. Tuhami in Marrakesh, and in the same month a summit meeting in Ismailia was a disastrous failure. In March ’78, President Carter blamed Begin for failing the peace effort, and in July of that year, a meeting between my father, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and their Egyptian counterpart was held in Leeds Castle in England. The Leeds Castle conference, free of the mounting tensions between Begin and Sadat, offered a minor breakthrough and in fact paved the way for the Camp David conference.
The obstacles were all too clear and rather repetitive. Egypt insisted on linking the signing of a peace treaty to a solution to the Palestinian problem. Such a solution meant, as far as they were concerned, a total withdrawal from “all occupied territories” and “self-determination” for the Palestinian people. They would not, at that point, sign a separate peace agreement with Israel. The gap between the positions was wide. We insisted that we were not foreigners in these “occupied territories,” and we wanted an agreement based on coexistence. Israel proposed autonomy (self-rule) for a period of five years, the question of sovereignty of the areas to be discussed later.
My father was trying to separate issues. Peace with Egypt could be signed and implemented, and the status of the West Bank could be decided later. Details which were in dispute, in Leeds Castle and later in Camp David, he thought, should be handled separately, rather than keep the ball from rolling.
Bilateral letters, appendices, prologues, preambles, and the like could technically solve major emotional issues through the right legal phrasing. Words and synonyms should be instruments for a breakthrough, rather than impede or arrest it. Peace, coexistence, security, normalization had their dynamics, and once they were established, the paperwork concerning the disputed phrases would be forgotten. Leeds Castle broke the impasse, and a date was set for a summit meeting at Camp David—September 1978.
Each country sent a nine-man delegation, and for thirteen days the leaders, ministers, and legal advisers of the three countries were locked and isolated in a concentrated effort. My father wrote that “the summit meeting at Camp David was the decisive, most difficult and least pleasant stage in the negotiations. All three parties had to resolve agonizing psychological and ideological crises in order to reach an agreement. It meant abandoning long-held traditional viewpoints and outlooks and taking up new positions.” My father was best equipped to do just that. He was probably the only one able to help Prime Minister Begin abandon his own “long-held traditional viewpoints.”
I can only quote others, in saying—as Secretary Vance did—that Father’s contribution to the Camp David accord was not only major but indispensable. Many of the experts on these pressured, turbulent thirteen days go as far as to suggest that if it hadn’t been for Dayan, there would have been no accord.
Kissinger, who impressed my father “by his wisdom, his broad-ranging knowledge, his prodigious capacity for work and his ability to set things in perspective,” said: “War was Dayan’s profession, peace was his obsession … History will record him as a principal architect of the peace treaty with Egypt … A major frame of the Camp David accords.”
He was obsessed. Not at the expense of cool, clear thinking, but to the point of enlisting all his faculties, his experience, his aspirations, and his visions. The Fathers and the Kings, the Prophets and the exiles, his own ancestors and his children and grandchildren, were all in the back of his mind. The fertile Jezreel Valley and the Negev Desert, the streets of Old Jerusalem and the cliffs of Judea, the shelled bridgehead in Africa and the vulnerable coastline of Tel Aviv, never left him in the thirteen days of near-disasters, deadlocks, and great triumphs. On September 17, in the East Room of the White House, the Framework Agreement was signed. Late that night, back in his hotel room, my father thought of that evening as “one of the most momentous of my life. I have traveled a long road from the battlefield to the peace table … The toughest stretch of that journey had been the years since that fateful Yom Kippur until the White House ceremony I have just attended …”
When we met at home he was not at all jubilant. Acceptable principles had been established, a timetable for withdrawal and normalization was set, a proposal for an interim solution to the Palestinian problem was satisfactory to both sides, but a long and difficult journey still lay ahead, and there was more at stake now than ever before. We had yielded a great deal and put our trust in promises and securities, an enormous risk which had to be proved well worth taking.
The next round of negotiations took place in Washington, at Blair House, for a few weeks during the month of October. My father headed the Israeli delegation; Kamal Hassan Ali, the Egyptian; and Secretary Vance, the American. On the agenda was the proposed draft of a comprehensive peace treaty, accepted by both sides as a basis for discussion.
The obstacles were many, and not new. The priority of the Israel–Egypt treaty over Egypt’s treaties with Arab states (obliging her to join them if they should go to war with Israel). The linkage of the peace treaty with the Palestinian question and the establishment of diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadors between Egypt and Israel—gradual, linked to the pace of withdrawal, at its first phase as we demanded. A few weeks and seven drafts later, the Israeli delegation returned home. The government had to approve or reject the Blair House agreement. Rejection meant that Israel would be blamed for the failure to achieve peace, and Begin threw his full weight into its support, in spite of the good number of objections he had.
On October 26, Begin and Sadat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that was very farsighted, as the following four months seemed to lead away from the coveted peace into a maze of legalistic and practical deliberations and a dead end. Cyrus Vance traveled to Israel, demanding more flexibility. What for us were major issues, Carter termed “minor gaps,” and the U.S.–Israel rift grew. On Christmas Eve, 1978, a year after Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, my father met with Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Khalil in Brussels, where Secretary Vance joined them. The dialogue was candid and open; priorities were reestablished; and Khalil took a clear message home with him. Egypt could not be part of the common front of our adversaries and at the same time maintain peaceful relations with us. If they chose peace, they would have to compromise on their position in the hostile Arab world. In February 1979, I celebrated my fortieth birthday. Mother had been living in Washington, for a year, working as a consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank, and Father was packing again to attend Camp David II. It amused me to think of myself as a woman of forty, as there was a suggestion of middle-age maturity in those words. Father said it was ridiculous, he could never think of me as a “forty-year-old lady,” and my grandmother gave me a delicious surprise lunch, attended by friends I loved and was close to. Dov was of the opinion that birthdays were best ignored, and I didn’t in particular feel like stock-taking. My children were not babies, but I was still a young mother, and I was healthy and well. I still felt, if it mattered at all, that there was more ahead of than behind me. A thought that was comforting until considered in relation to my father. He was only sixty-four, and there was nothing I knew that could make me think of his life span in terms of years rather than decades. Yet an element of sadness burdened my heart whenever our frequent but short meetings ended. As if time was running short. As if all the unsaid would not have a chance to be said; as if items on the agenda of life might not be tackled, ever. If there was a time when I repressed any feelings, these were the ones. Premonitions, superstitions, vague suspicions were never part of my pattern of thinking. I had no faith in a deity, and neither did he. We treaded a common ground of facts and beliefs, shared a few values, and handled the tangible well. This new sensation I had, whenever I left Zahala, or even at the end of a phone conversation, I had no way of sharing or even admitting to myself. I was no longer
anybody’s little girl, but I was a mother and a daughter and dismissed thoughts of the three-generation cycle as anything but solid-rock and “forever.”
If I reproach myself now for not having succumbed to premonition, for not having grabbed a larger handful of what was left of time and love, I do so because of my loss, not his. He was satisfied with the silences. He was not anxious to pursue a love he took for granted, and was comforted by the fact that the token he had given me was never in fact used and never had to be put to the test.
I was expanding my knowledge and vision and with it my tolerance and patience. He was narrowing his, in everyday matters to the point of exasperating pettiness. The brilliance of analysis, the originality of thinking, and the courage mingled with humor which he displayed on national affairs, historic or current, disappeared in small talk, in melancholy discussions of electricity bills, the cost of living, the wages of maids and gardeners, future financial security. He had treasures, of spirit and mind, and even possessions, and he was counting his pennies, tolerating dull company for free lunches, and saving for a rainy day. He knew as well as we all did that our welfare state took good care of its elected leadership on a rainy day. When he talked, with a deep sigh, about the cost of twenty-four-hour private nurses, whose services he might need one day, he knew very well that these services were all paid for by the state, and yet he was constantly preoccupied with it. Everything he said, or did, or sold or exchanged, had a price tag attached to it during the last years of his life. He charged for interviews, for speeches, for autographed oil lamps, and indirectly for his and Rahel’s company. Fortunately, the one sphere that was free, where he didn’t spare himself one bit, was his public life.
Camp David II was not a major success, and Egypt’s growing extremism was partially backed by an impatient U.S. President. In March 1979, Carter accepted the invitation to visit Cairo and Jerusalem. It was clearly a last effort to end the negotiations on a positive note. The conflict remaining was not over substance and was caused by two technical problems. The participants were tense and tired, and the mood was deflated accordingly. The cabinet repeated its objections and arguments, and Carter sent word of his exasperation. He was packing to leave the next day, empty-handed. Before going to bed, Begin agreed to let my father try another session with Secretary Vance that night, provided he did not commit himself to anything. Only the cabinet could make a final decision.
The result of that night talk was an addendum to the disputed Appendix C of the treaty. The last hurdle was cleared, and Father could take personal credit for the dissolution of another crisis. Sadat, too, succumbed to the last-minute pressure, and Carter would fly back to Washington assured of the success of his mission. It was arranged that the joint signing ceremony would take place in Washington, at the White House, on March 26, 1979, at two in the afternoon.
As it happened, I was lucky. For years, I had come to the United States on the last two weeks of March for U.J.A. fund-raising meetings, and I waited eagerly for my father to suggest I join him in Washington for the ceremony. He did, calling our ambassador to tell him, and it was left to me to decide whether to cancel a meeting in Easton, Pennsylvania, scheduled for that evening. I could do both, I figured. I could attend the ceremony at two and, rather than attend the White House dinner that night, address the Jewish community of Easton. In Washington I was a witness; in Easton the event depended on my appearance, and a glamorous social function should not affect my priorities. I arrived in Washington the evening before—as it happened, from Mexico—and the Israeli actor, Chaim Topol, met me at the airport. We drove to the Hilton Hotel, where I had a room and where everybody else stayed. Ezer and Reumah were there; and my mother, who still resided in Washington; and the Israeli delegation, complete with friends and cousins and wellwishers and whoever was able, with some pull, to secure an invitation to the ceremony or the dinner or had to be satisfied with lobby handshakes.
My father was alone. For some reason, he objected to the wives joining their husbands on this occasion, and set an example (unfollowed) by leaving his at home. We had the happiest reunion. He was still busy with last-minute details. He was not yet celebrating, he said, and there was one official document missing—a letter confirming the arrangement on oil supplies, prepared that night with Vance. He would have dinner with me, he said, provided it was the best meal in town and he wasn’t paying …
It was a very good meal indeed, and Topol was paying, and what was best was Father’s almost relaxed mood. He was full of charm and humor, letting go after months of accumulated tension. He approved of my decision to go to Easton to speak, and was delighted that I would still be able to attend the ceremony. Back in the hotel, we talked for a while. He made a few calls and had to attend a last meeting before he went to sleep. We talked about Nahalal; he mentioned his parents, his sister, and his brother—all dead—and wondered whether Udi would stay on the farm, and would his children … Maybe your son, he suggested, will not have to fight a war, though I doubt it … He spoke very warmly of Secretary Vance; he asked about my mother and was satisfied to hear that she would attend the ceremony the next day with her sister. He kissed me good night, and though he looked tired, there was the old flicker in his eye, expressing, almost boasting, a personal achievement. We met for breakfast, joined by a lady friend of Rahel’s who had flown down from New York, and we went back to his room, where he had to look at some papers. He took off his shoes and was relaxing when a secretary called him to the phone in another room. I looked for his slippers, and when I found them, I burst into laughter. There were two shoes, each the left slipper of a different pair … He gave me his best crooked smile, managed to get his feet into them, and proudly walked the Hilton corridor. What the hell, an architect of a peace treaty doesn’t have to be perfect about packing his slippers … There was still hope, I figured.
The ceremony itself was laden with emotion. Behind the fence, a group of Palestinians demonstrated against Sadat, and I took my seat, not far from my mother and aunt, looking at the Egyptian ladies sitting a few chairs away and wondering whether they, like me, were thinking about their fathers, husbands, and children.
The speeches included the obvious quotations from the Bible and voiced hopes in prophetic terms. It didn’t matter. The substance lay not in the words spoken but in the past tragedies and the future prospects. Carter, Sadat, and Begin signed; the cameras clicked; and many eyes were misty with tears. My father was seated in the front row, and he turned to look for me. I made my way through handshakes and hugs and reached him in time to sneak to a side entrance and get into a car and back to the hotel. We had a snack away from other people, and then he was asked to join Begin and the other members of the delegation for a toast, and he left reluctantly. A private plane was waiting for me at the airport, piloted by one of the members of the Easton community, to make sure I’d be there on time, not risking commercial connections.
The next day, I called Father in Washington. He declared the evening gala dinner a bore, said he was exhausted, and reiterated his satisfaction—not thrill—with the final agreement. Take good care and give yourself a rest, I said—needed and well deserved. Neither of us could know that cancerous cells were multiplying wildly in his colon. Malignancy tumors didn’t pay heed to his theory that the best way to cure a disease was to ignore it.
FOURTEEN : TWO YEARS IN MY FATHER’S DEATH
When he returned from a tour of the Far East, in May, Father had a thorough checkup. The condition of his lungs and spine was unchanged. His heart muscles were weakening and his pulse irregular, but this did not explain his anemia and iron deficiency. In June, after a series of gastrointestinal radiological examinations, the doctors diagnosed a growth in the colon. Only after surgery and pathological tests would doctors define the tumor as malignant, but there wasn’t really any doubt about it. My father claimed he had suspected for a while, and rather than use fancy medical terms, he said simply: I have cancer, you mean. When can you operate …
; The operation was set for three days later, a Sunday, and Rahel called me to come to Zahala. We sat in the garden and she said—there was no other way of putting it: Your father is going to be operated on for a tumor in the colon. When I insisted, and the word “cancer” was uttered, we both had tears in our eyes, and during the conversation which followed, I was in a state of emotional upheaval unknown to me before.
I was knowledgeable enough. I had seen people survive, fight and beat cancer; the word did not have a threatening primitive effect on me; and yet in my father’s case it sounded like a death sentence. Not an immediate one, not the following week or anything like that, but rather a sensation of doom. I said to Rahel that I’d tell my brothers, and walked over to the corner of the garden where my father was busy washing some stones. I managed to fight away my tears, but my voice trembled and I couldn’t speak. He must have realized the state I was in, and tried to sound lighthearted. “Come on,” he said, smiling, “I’ll surprise you all. The operation itself is not complicated, and provided it hasn’t spread, I’ll soon be back to work. Who needs such a long intestine, anyway?”
It didn’t work. He showed me the stones he was handling. They had perhaps been used as playthings. He saw in each of them an animal, or found a resemblance to an eye, a nostril, a crack where a mouth should be. They did not seem manmade to me, just a coincidence of nature. He wasn’t sure himself, and there was no way of finding out, but he liked the idea. He was deviating from the precise to the mystic. “What’s death anyway, a celebration for the worms. The inevitable, and you know I never feared that moment …” “Your feeling is not contagious,” I said. “Don’t you think of your death in relation to the living? Those who are left behind?” Only when he touched my shoulder did I notice I was crying. “I’m not going to die, not yet, and you’re a big girl … Here!” He showed me a stone that looked like millions of others. “Doesn’t it resemble a lion head?” I nodded and touched its cold surface, wiped my eyes dry, and walked away.