“Well, Sam,” said the prime minister, after a pleasant preliminary chitchat, “what’s on President Reagan’s mind that can’t wait?”
“I am instructed by the president to deliver this to you, Mr. Prime Minister,” said Lewis gravely, handing over the letter.
“With your permission I shall read it in your presence. May I?” asked Mr. Begin, with his old-world courtesy – a set ritual the ambassador knew well.
“Please do.”
Begin adjusted his spectacles, drew the page closer to his face, and began studying it with intense concentration, taking in the meaning of the words. The further he read, the more his brow puckered and his face dropped, so that by the time he reached the president’s signature his features were a scowl and his mouth thin with displeasure.
“Sam,” he said, “this is the saddest day of my life since becoming prime minister. Could you not have allowed us to enjoy our victory for just a day or two longer? Did you have to bring this to me now?” And then, eyes as steely as his face, he flared, “Mr. Ambassador, is this it, or do you have anything orally to add?”
“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, I do,” answered Lewis, hiding a thick swallow, and he proceeded to read out his talking points, which caused the expression on the prime minister’s face to mutate from anger to angst and back again. When the ambassador related that Washington was consulting simultaneously with Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the presidential plan, Begin became so angry that he bit his lip, and said from between clenched teeth, “Did I hear you say you were consulting with Saudi Arabia? What on earth does Saudi Arabia have to do with peace with Israel? Are you telling me that your superiors in Washington are involving those anti-Israel, Islamic fanatics in determining our future, our very fate?”
“My instructions state – ”
“I hear exactly what your instructions state, Mr. Ambassador. You have told me. They state that Washington has been consulting with everybody but with the government of Israel. And they state that the king of Jordan already seems favorably disposed to the presidential initiative which concerns Israel most of all, but about which my government knows least of all.”
The premier stared at the letter in silence, his face grim. The ambassador held his tongue. The room went as quiet as a catacomb. Finally, Begin threw the ambassador a livid look, and with bitterness said, “Please inform the president that I have read his letter and am most unhappy both with its contents and its implications. I have also listened very carefully to your oral message and am extremely upset by its contents. You may tell the president and the secretary of state that I am astonished that your government did not see fit to indicate that such an initiative was in the making, or to consult with the government of Israel at any stage of its elaboration. This is entirely unacceptable. The whole initiative is utterly contrary to all our understandings with your country. It is not in accordance with the Camp David agreements; in fact it is a violation of those agreements. Of course, I will consult with my cabinet, and then give you a response. We being a democracy – unlike those others with whom your government has seen fit to consult – necessitates my being given time before giving a formal response.”
“I understand,” said Lewis – he really did – “but I am required to tell you that the president intends to make his plan public within the next seventy-two hours.”
“In that case I ask you to please ask the president, on my behalf, to defer his speech for five or six days so as to enable me to return to Jerusalem to convene the cabinet for a full debate.”
“I will certainly report your request, Mr. Prime Minister, but I have no way of knowing if the president can wait that long. He is very sensitive to premature leaks.”
With weary dignity and a voice full of entreaty, Begin said, “Sam, this plan has been thrust upon us. It bears upon our very existence. I think President Reagan owes me at least that much; to give my government time to render a considered response.”
“I promise I will do my very best,” said the ambassador, rising and slipping his notebook into his briefcase. “I’ve made a record of everything you’ve said, and I shall now dash back to Tel Aviv and cable off your reaction and your request. And again, forgive me. I regret I had to interrupt your holiday for this purpose.”
“So do I, Sam. So do I,” muttered an unhappy prime minister.
The next evening, while the ambassador was attending a cocktail reception, one of his staff members nudged his way through the cluster of guests to deliver an urgent and highly classified cable which had just reached the embassy. When Lewis read it in the privacy of an out-of-the-way hallway, his left eyebrow rose a fraction, his heart missed a beat, and he muttered a sigh of dismay. His instruction was to deliver this message to the prime minister without delay, before the cabinet had time to formulate its response, which was set for the following morning. He pondered what best to do – drive straight to Nahariya and deliver the message personally, or take the inevitable flack over the telephone? He looked at his watch. It was late – too late to drive to Nahariya, so he sought out his chauffeur and told him to take him back to his embassy. “I have a call to make,” he said, and on his way over, he pondered how best to make it.
“Good evening, Mrs. Begin. Forgive me for disturbing you again. It’s Sam Lewis. May I – ”
“Hold on. My husband is right here. Menachem, pick up the extension. It’s Mr. Lewis.”
“Hello, Sam. You have news?”
“I do, Mr. Prime Minister, and I’m afraid it’s not as good as I would have wished.”
Silence.
“Mr. Prime Minister, are you there?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Ambassador, I am here, waiting to hear what you have to tell me.” There was a spike of reproach in his voice.
Lewis spoke in as reasonable a tone as he could manage. “My instructions are to tell you that the president is unable to postpone his public address as you requested.”
“Unable to postpone? Why not?” Begin’s bitterness spilled through the receiver.
“Because some of its substance has already been leaked and, therefore, the president has decided to deliver his speech this evening, Washington time.”
“This evening?! The president is making his initiative public this evening – even before my cabinet has the opportunity to deliberate upon it tomorrow morning?”
“I’m, afraid so, Mr. Prime Minister. I’m sorry.”
“As well you might be, Mr. Ambassador.”
The outrage in Begin’s voice was peppered with a bitter cynicism. “Is this the way to treat a friend? Is this the way to treat an ally? Your government consorts with our despotic enemies and yet you choose to ignore us on a matter of vital import to our future? What kind of a discourse is this between democratic peoples who purport to cherish common values? Is this the way to make peace? We do not deserve this kind of treatment.” And then, in a voice that had hardened ruthlessly: “Mr. Ambassador, please convey to the president exactly what I’ve just said. Tell him I am hurt to the core. And tell him that our cabinet will convene tomorrow as planned, and then we shall provide your government with our official response. Good night!”96
The response came in the form of a meticulously detailed and comprehensive refutation of every single point of the president’s plan. The penultimate paragraph read, “Since the positions of the government of the United States seriously deviate from the Camp David agreements, contradict it, and could create a serious danger to Israel, its security and future, the government of Israel has resolved that on the basis of these positions it will not enter into any negotiations with any party.”97
That done, the prime minister called me in to request I go over the draft of his accompanying letter to the president, which he had composed on paper from the boarding house before leaving Nahariya. After some minor ‘shakespearizations’ this is how it read:
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your letter of 31 August, 1982, which Ambassador Lewis was kind enough, upon instructions fro
m his government, to bring to me to Nahariya, now free of rockets and shells.
I enclose, herewith, the resolution of the cabinet, September 2, 1982, adopted unanimously. As each of the paragraphs is elaborated, I have little to add except to state – taking if I may a leaf from your book – that the government of Israel will stand by the decision with total dedication.
I have also read your speech, which preceded by twenty-four hours the cabinet consultation with my colleagues. It serves as additional testimony to your opinion or resolve. Indeed, my friend, great events did take place since we last met in Washington in June. May I, however, give you a somewhat different version of those events? On 6 June, the Israeli Defense Forces entered Lebanon in order not to conquer territory, but to fight and smash the armed bands operating from that country against our land and its citizens. This, the IDF did. You will recall that we could not, regrettably, accept your suggestion that we proclaim a ceasefire on Thursday, 10 June, at 06:00 hours, because at that time the enemy was still eighteen kilometers from Metula, on our northern border. However, twenty-four hours later we pushed the enemy further northwards and we proclaimed a unilateral ceasefire on Friday 11 June at 12 noon. This was rejected by the terrorists. So the fighting continued, and it went on until 21 June when we suggested that all the terrorists leave Beirut and Lebanon, which they did with the help of the important good offices of Ambassador Philip Habib many weeks later. In the ensuing battles Israel lost 340 men killed and 2,200 wounded, 100 of them severely.
When the Syrian Army entered the fray – against all our appeals – we destroyed 405 Soviet-Syrian tanks, downed 102 Soviet-Syrian MIGs (including one MIG-25) and smashed 21 batteries of SAM-6, SAM-8, and SAM-9 air-to-ground missiles – all deadly weapons. Yet, in your letter to me, as in your speech to the American people, you didn’t, Mr. President, see fit to mention even once the bravery of the Israeli fighter, and the great sacrifices of the Israeli army and our people. The impression one could have gotten was that Ambassador Philip Habib, with the help of expeditionary units, achieved this result. It is my duty to tell you, Mr. President, that I was struck by this omission. I state a fact. I do not complain.
What I do protest against is the omission to consult with us prior to sending out your proposals to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the former an outspoken opponent of the Camp David Accords, the latter a complete stranger to, and an adversary of, those accords.
In face of the fact that there was no prior consultation, the U.S. government adopted the position that the ‘West Bank’ be re-associated with Jordan. What some call the ‘West Bank,’ Mr. President, is Judea and Samaria, and this simple historic truth will never change. There are cynics who mock history. They may deride history as much as they wish. I stand by the truth – the truth that millennia ago there was a Jewish kingdom of Judea and Samaria, where our kings knelt to God, where our prophets brought forth the vision of eternal peace, where we developed our rich civilization which we took with us in our hearts and minds on our long global trek for over eighteen centuries and, with it, we came back home.
By aggressive war and by invasion, King Abdullah [of Jordan] conquered parts of Samaria and Judea in 1948. Subsequently, in a war of most legitimate self-defense in 1967, after having been attacked by King Hussein [of Jordan], we liberated, with the Almighty’s help, that same region of our homeland.
Judea and Samaria will never again be the ‘West Bank’ of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, created by British colonialism after the French Army expelled King Faisel from Damascus [at the end of World War One].
At Camp David we suggested – yes, it was our initiative – full autonomy for the Arabs of Palestine, inhabitants of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza district, with a transitional period of five years. It is a generous suggestion of the widest scope of autonomy existing on earth in our time….
Geography and history have determined that the matter of security remains paramount, for Judea and Samaria are mountainous country; two-thirds of our population lives in the coastal plain below. From those mountains you can hit every city, every town, each township and village, and last but not least, our principal airport [Ben-Gurion] in the plain below. We used to live penned up in eight miles from the seashore and now, Mr. President, you suggest to us in your proposals that we return to almost that same situation.
True, you declare you will not support the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza district. But such a state will arise of itself the day Judea and Samaria are given to Jordanian jurisdiction. Then, in no time, we and you will have a Soviet base in the heart of the Middle East. Under no circumstances shall we accept such a possibility ever arising, which would endanger our very existence.
Mr. President, you and I chose for the last two years to call our countries ‘friends and allies.’ Such being the case, a friend does not weaken his friend, and an ally does not put his ally in jeopardy. This would be the inevitable consequence were the ‘positions’ transmitted to me on August 31, 1982, to become reality.
I believe they won’t.
‘L’ma’an Zion lo echeshe, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot ’ – For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. (Isaiah, chapter 62).
Yours respectfully and sincerely,
Menachem98
First page of Prime Minister Begin's draft letter to President Reagan, categorically rejecting his peace plan, 2 September 1982
Chapter 55
The Rosh Hashanah of Sabra and Shatila
The ambitious Reagan initiative was so flawed it was doomed to failure before it even got off the ground. Moreover, it was swiftly overtaken by events, when yet another ghastly calamity rocked Lebanon. On 14 September 1982, that country’s president-elect, Bashir Gemayel, on whom Begin had pinned his hopes for peace, was assassinated. In revenge, Christian militias slaughtered hundreds of Muslim civilians in two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, known as Sabra and Shatila. This horrendous massacre occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, 16 September. On the following morning, Mr. Begin stood waiting for me in the hallway of his residence, where I was meeting him to escort him to synagogue. His face was like stone. Contemptuously he snapped, “Host du gehert aza meisa? [Have you heard of such a thing?] Christians massacre Muslims and the goyim blame the Jews.”
Dumbfounded, I said, “I don’t understand.”
“Precisely what I’m telling you. I first heard it on the BBC. I checked with our commanders on the spot. They told me it was true. Christian militias entered two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut to flush out residual PLO terrorist nests, and then set upon civilians, massacring hundreds. Our own men put a stop to it, yet predictably, the foreign media are blaming us.” He looked at his watch. “Come, let us go. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
Still not totally recovered from his broken hip, the prime minister grasped his cane, handed me the velvet pouch containing his prayer shawl, gripped my arm for support and, surrounded by bodyguards, began limping the few blocks toward Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, pausing periodically to acknowledge the New Year greetings of respectful passersby. While he walked, he leaned heavily on my arm and recounted what he knew of the hideous events that had occurred in Beirut over the past several days.
According to reports, buildings filled with people had been dynamited to the ground. The alleyways in the two refugee camps were filled with entangled corpses, hastily dug mass graves, and bodies bulldozed to the sides of lanes. Lebanon was slowly bleeding to death in the abattoir of its civil war, which had been ravaging its people since 1975. And even though everyone knew that in years past, Lebanese Arab Muslims and Lebanese Arab Christians had inflicted far more terrible slaughters on each other, and even though everyone knew that no Israelis were directly involved in these latest massacres, the Jewish State had been put in the dock of public opinion for allegedly having allowed the slaughter to happen.
“There’s no one more respectful of world opin
ion than me,” said Begin, with a hint of sarcasm, as we approached the synagogue. “But when papers in Washington, London and Paris brand us as aggressors and don’t have a single accusatory word to say about those trying to kill our innocents, then we have to conclude that we face a blatant media bias.”
“In other words, anti-Semitism,” I said.
He paused, looked at me morosely, and said what he really meant: “There are many bleeding hearts among the goyim who say, ‘God forbid – us, anti-Semites? Never! We’re just anti-Israel.’ Believe me, there comes a point where it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other. This is why we have to stand up to these people and never be apologetic. We have to constantly remind them how their papers didn’t say a single word while six million of our brethren were being slaughtered. Never once did they make an effort to pressure their governments to come to the rescue of even a single Jewish child. So I’m not at all surprised at this innate bias. It’s always been the same” – this with a snarl – “goyim kill goyim and they hang the Jews.”
This was not the only source of grief for the prime minister on that Rosh Hashanah. He deeply lamented the demise of the prospect of another treaty of peace with a neighbor. President-elect Bashir Gemayel had been so well disposed toward Israel that he had begun to deliberate seriously about being the next signatory to a treaty. Indeed, the prime minister, along with his defense minister Ariel Sharon, had been intensely engaged with Gemayel, negotiating its details. But just as the young president-elect was about to be officially inaugurated and assume formal control of his fractious domain, he was murdered, and the fragments of the peace treaty draft were left scattered among his remains.
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 69