Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian

by Bernard Lewis

  A small group of Pakistani officers was then sent to Egypt. They toured the country, spoke to many people and reported that they were not told the truth. The reason that they were not told the truth is that nobody knew the truth. In the Egyptian armed forces, they said, “The corporal lies to the sergeant, the sergeant lies to the lieutenant, the lieutenant lies to the captain, the captain lies to the major and so on all the way up the chain of command. By the time it reaches the high command or the Ministry of Defense, they haven’t a clue what is going on.” The Pakistani general heading the mission concluded that the high command in Cairo was sitting on the top of a pyramid of lies. The Pakistani government therefore declined and said it was sorry but it could not help.

  By the late 1960s Egypt was becoming a Soviet dependency, almost a colony. I remember traveling in Upper Egypt and chatting with a shopkeeper who was lamenting the difficult times. “The tourists have stopped coming—the English, the French, the Americans and the rest—and business is terrible,” he said. To which I remarked, “But you have plenty of Russians.” At this he spat eloquently into the gutter and said, “The Russians! They won’t buy a pack of cigarettes and they won’t even give you a cigarette.” I saw his point. Russians bought only from their own stores and were not sociable.

  Another Egyptian remarked that both the British and the Russians had regarded Egypt as a cow, to be used for their own convenience. “The difference,” he said, “is that the British wanted milk, while the Russians want beef.”

  I met an Egyptian friend and colleague in Mexico not long after that at an international congress of Orientalists. He had gone there somewhat earlier in order to take advantage of the opportunity to acquaint himself with the country. He was stunned by what he found. The Spaniards had conquered Mexico and imposed their language and their religion, just as the Arabs had conquered Egypt and imposed Arabic and Islam. Mexico remains a Spanish-speaking, Catholic country. But it would not occur to any Mexican to call himself a Spaniard. On the contrary, they are proudly aware of the history of Mexican civilization from ancient times. “Why is it that the Mexicans were able to preserve their memory and their identity while we Egyptians completely lost ours until it was restored to us by modern, mainly Western, scholarship?” he asked.

  I was struck by this observation and tried to answer his question. I pointed to two important differences. One was that the Arabs had come from next door, and remained next door, while the Spaniards were thousands of miles away. The second was that by the time the Arabs arrived in Egypt in the seventh century, the ancient civilization had already been to a large extent obliterated by the successive phases of Hellenization, Romanization, and Christianization. Mexican identity and its awareness of that identity were still current and vivid.

  He saw my point, but wasn’t satisfied. He said, “After all, in Egypt we had a great and glorious civilization of which many major monuments remain. The Mexican heritage is comparatively trivial by comparison.”

  I think that did less than justice to the Mexican heritage, but the larger question remains. It is not just Mexico and Spanish. Americans call the language they speak English, but they do not therefore call themselves Englishmen.

  The Yom Kippur War

  In October 1973, Sadat launched his famous attack on Israeli occupying forces on Yom Kippur. The opening phase of the war was successful. The Israelis were taken completely by surprise when Egyptian forces crossed cease-fire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula, and at the same time, Syrian forces entered the Golan Heights. Both areas had been occupied since the 1967 Six Day War. But an Israeli counterattack speedily restored and indeed aggravated the previous situation. Israeli troops, well ensconced in the Sinai Peninsula, now crossed the Canal and soon established what came to be known as a “pocket” on the Egyptian side of the Canal. A cease-fire was agreed and negotiations followed which eventually led, six years later, to the first peace treaty between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors.

  I was in Egypt at the time and shortly after and have vivid recollections of the Egyptian mood. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Egyptian sense of humor, notable at all times and especially remarkable at this difficult moment in their nation’s history. I spent an evening at a dinner party in Cairo where a number of professors were present from both religious and secular universities, and before very long, as almost always happened in Egypt, they started telling jokes.

  “Have you heard about the conversations between Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat?” one began. “In the morning she said to him, ‘Bonjour,’ and he replied, ‘Ubūr’ ” (in Arabic, “crossing.” The term applied to the crossing of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian forces at the beginning of the war. Note that the words rhyme). In the evening he said to her, “Bonsoir,” and she replied, “Deversoir” (the name of the dam where the Israeli forces crossed the Canal into Egypt proper).

  Israeli forces advanced as far as Kilometer 101, east from Cairo, which they had reached when the cease-fire was agreed. The Israeli negotiator, General Arele Yariv, set up his headquarters in a tent at Kilometer 101 and waited for the Egyptian representative to arrive. Sadat summoned his defense minister, General Mohamed Abdel-Ghani al-Gamasi and told him he must go to Kilometer 101 to meet with the Israeli and negotiate the Egyptian surrender.

  It was not long after this that I met Gamasi’s deputy who told me this story. He said, as one can readily understand, that Gamasi was devastated. The defeat was unequivocal and he was sure that he would be utterly humiliated. But there was nothing he could do about it. He was the minister of defense and the head of his government had ordered him to go and discharge this painful duty. He went to General Yariv’s tent, and entered it in a state of utter devastation.

  This changed totally when General Yariv spoke his opening words, “Would you like tea or coffee?” This brought a feeling of immense relief to Gamasi and led to a relaxed and more or less friendly conversation between equals. They even started talking about their personal lives which led to the one bad moment. Gamasi was speaking of his wife’s illness which apparently was quite serious. Yariv at once responded, “We have excellent doctors in Israel including specialists on this. Would you like me to arrange to send some to help you?” Gamasi was insulted at the implication that Israeli doctors were better than Egyptian doctors and could succeed where the latter would fail. Yariv was able to soothe him and the discussion continued on a friendly basis.

  I knew Yariv quite well and was able to compare the account received from Gamasi’s deputy with his. They tallied.

  In spite of their final victory, the Israelis were not happy about the way in which the war had been conducted and were especially aggrieved by the opening victories won by the Egyptian forces. The public debate reflected these concerns.

  At about the same time President Sadat in Egypt, latching on to the initial Egyptian success in crossing the Canal, started talking about “our victory in the recent war.” The rejoinder was memorable. Some Egyptians, in astonishment, looked at Sadat and said, “Our victory?” to which President Sadat replied, “If you don’t believe me, listen to what the Israelis are saying.”

  Golda Meir and Peace with Egypt

  The students of Princeton University have a very well-endowed debating society—well-endowed because the university is two and a half centuries old and so too is the debating society, and many Princeton alumni have done well in the world and generously remembered their alma mater. It had become the custom that from time to time the society would invite a distinguished person to come to Princeton as their guest. In 1975 they invited Golda Meir, who had just ceased to be the Prime Minister of Israel. She accepted and had a very lively visit with many events. At one point an earnest student admonished her that she shouldn’t smoke so much as it was bad for her health. “Well,” replied the seventy-seven-year-old “I’m not going to die young, am I?”

  During the several days she was on campus the female students, who were still a novelty at Princeton and quite d
efensive, put up a poster with her photo on it and the caption, “But can she type?” The high spot, in this as in similar visits, was a public address in the largest lecture hall of the university. The auditorium overflowed. The chairman, a senior university dignitary, made the appropriate speech introducing our distinguished guest and called on Golda Meir to speak.

  She went to the lectern and said, “I think you will agree with me that on occasions like this the speech is usually a bore. What is interesting is the question and answer period. If the chairman will agree, I would suggest that we skip the speech. You know who I am, you know where I come from, you know what I am likely to say, so let’s eliminate the speech and get straight down to the questions.” The audience loved it. The chairman was more than a little startled but agreed and we had a remarkable question and answer session.

  At that time, UNESCO had refused to admit Israel but had admitted the Palestine Liberation Organization. A student asked, “Why did UNESCO reject Israel and admit the PLO?” and Golda Meir said, quite correctly, “That is a question that should be addressed to UNESCO, not to me.” And the student followed up, “You are right, but it would be interesting to know why, in your opinion, UNESCO made those decisions.” She, with a perfectly straight face, said, “As you know, UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and one must assume that these gentlemen, after due and careful consideration, decided that the PLO has more to contribute to education, science and culture than Israel has.” It brought the house down.

  Golda Meir was very tough, very committed. Particularly in that generation, but still today, for a woman to succeed in politics she has to be tough. Golda was fitted with a kind of personal filtration system—she only heard what she wanted to hear. If she picked up anything in what I was saying to her that fit within her pattern of thought, she would immediately grasp and use it. Anything that didn’t fit just went straight past her as, for example, when I came to her in 1969 with my story of Egypt being ready for peace negotiations. It is noteworthy that what she was actually doing while we discussed this was giving me a cup of tea and a piece of cake in her kitchen.

  I had met her a number of times in Tel Aviv but I particularly recall that conversation: I’d been in Egypt for a while and I had come away with a very firm, clear belief that Egypt was ready for peace negotiations with Israel. I was sure of it. I had no doubts whatsoever.

  During my occasional visits to Egypt I used to see more or less the same people every time. If you go to a country at intervals and talk to the same people you have an opportunity to measure changes in mood and changes in attitude. It gives you a cross-section of opinion, using the same samples. After an absence of several years I had gone back to Egypt in 1969. Nasser was still alive and in control. Although I did meet Nasser I had no serious conversation with him, but I saw a lot of people, including old friends, and I was very much struck by the change in mood. I came away with a very clear impression that Egypt was ready for peace. I even wrote an article, published in Encounter, in which I said that. I didn’t use my own name because I didn’t want to get my Egyptian friends into trouble. (Egypt was under a ruthless dictatorial regime; as a foreign, particularly Jewish, visitor I must have been carefully observed by the police and they would have known whom I had seen and with whom I had talked.) So as not to endanger my Egyptian friends, I used a pseudonym. I said that I thought Egypt was ready for peace and that negotiations could really lead to a treaty between Egypt and Israel. That was almost ten years before it happened.

  I went to Egypt again several times after that, in 1970, 1971, 1974, both before Nasser’s death in 1973 and after the Yom Kippur War. I did not meet Sadat, who took over the presidency on Nasser’s death in 1970 but I met some of his close advisers and was absolutely convinced that a direct approach to Egypt would produce results.

  At the first opportunity after my return from my trip in 1969 I went to Israel, sought out Golda and tried to convince her that the Egyptians were ready, and that a direct approach would almost certainly produce results. She didn’t believe me. She indicated that I had allowed myself to be duped by the Egyptians and that it was all nonsense. I tried the same on Moshe Dayan. I think he did believe me, but he didn’t like it. He just didn’t want to negotiate. He said, “If we talk we’ll have to give them something. What else would we talk about?” He thought at the time that Israel could still hold on to half of Sinai.

  I put this to Golda, I put it to Dayan, I also put it to Rabin. I even wrote Rabin a letter to that effect. But it fell on deaf ears; they didn’t believe me or didn’t want to believe me. Menachem Begin did.

  The Egypt/Israel Peace Treaty

  The Israel/Egypt peace process took a long time, and it would take a change of government for Israel to reconsider its position. This happened when Menachem Begin took over as Prime Minister in 1977. The paradox is that Begin was an ultranationalist rightist in his party, the Likud. He was always taking the strong, hard line. But the Likud were the ones who were ready to make peace with Egypt, not the Labor Party. Rabin, a Laborite, was asked about it later, and he said, “When I was Prime Minister I had to worry about Begin. Begin didn’t have to worry about Begin.” There was something to that. It was de Gaulle who gave away Algeria; it was Nixon who opened a line to China. There are things that right-wing patriots can do which liberal politicians cannot because they will be attacked by the right. Some people express such hopes about Netanyahu. Nixon made peace with China, de Gaulle made peace in Algeria, Begin in Sinai. Why shouldn’t Netanyahu be able to do what Peres couldn’t do and make peace with the Palestinians? But that’s a different ball game.

  In the end Anwar Sadat, not unreasonably, decided that on the best estimate of Israel’s power and the worst estimate of Israel’s intentions, Israel was less of a danger to Egypt than was the Soviet Union. I was told that when Sadat finally went on his trip to Jerusalem in November 1977, he was received by the Prime Minister and then was introduced to dignitaries, both of the government and of the opposition. I don’t know if it’s true but the story is that when he came to Golda Meir and shook her hand she said to him, “What took you so long?”

  When Sadat went to Jerusalem and addressed the Knesset he had two Egyptian guards with him and an Israeli interpreter, who was my informant on this story. He went in with his guards to address the Knesset and when he spoke the Knesset was completely silent; you could have heard a pin drop. They listened in total silence and respect until he finished his speech. When Begin stood up to reply, the Knesset reverted to its normal behavior—people coming and going, members talking to each other, interruptions and the like. The two Egyptian guards looked at this in utter amazement and one said to the other, “What is this?” The second one replied, “This is democracy.” And the first one shook his head and said, “By Allah, a very sweet thing.”

  The Israel/Egypt peace worked. A lot of people were dubious. The pessimists said it will end when Egypt gets back Sinai. Some said it will end when Sadat dies—it’s his personal thing. Some people said it would not stand up if there was a conflict between Israel and another Arab state. All those things happened. The Egyptians recovered the whole of Sinai, and the treaty stood. Sadat was murdered, and the treaty stood. And then there was the 1982 war in Lebanon. The Egyptians were miffed, but the treaty stood. The Egypt/Israel peace has survived a number of major shocks but it still stands.

  The term “separate peace” was used by many Arab states to condemn the Egyptian/Israeli peace treaty. They said that Egypt was letting down the Arab cause, that by making a separate peace with Israel, they were leaving the other Arabs in the lurch.

  In the preliminary agreement between Sadat and Begin, Sadat wanted to include a clause according to which Israel would recognize “the legitimate rights of the Palestinians.” Begin, the small-town lawyer, immediately wanted to know what these “legitimate rights” were. Sadat reassured him. He explained that he could not simply abandon the Palestinians. What he
wanted was to be able to say to them that he, as ruler of Egypt, could only negotiate for Egypt. The Palestinians must do their own negotiations and he had eased their path by getting Israel to agree to their “legitimate rights.” It was now up to them to negotiate with the Israelis on the definition and application of those rights.

  I was told by someone who was at Camp David that President Carter raised the same question about “the legitimate rights of the Palestinians” and Sadat gave him the same answer, at which President Carter exclaimed in horror, “You mean you are prepared to abandon the Palestinians?”

  The peace with Egypt had a profound impact on the balance of power in the Middle East and secured for the first time some measure of recognition for Israel among its neighbors. But any hope that it would pave the way to a more comprehensive peace remains unfulfilled. The Palestinians didn’t negotiate, not for a very long time. And when they did, at Oslo in 1993, it was due to quite other causes, mainly the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is significant that these were bilateral negotiations between the two parties without any outside intermediaries except the Norwegians, who provided a place to meet and some practical help. The United States was brought in at a later stage.