Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter on the porch of Aspen Lodge
Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter on the porch of Aspen Lodge
CARTER AWAKENED EARLY, as usual, and went for a long bicycle ride around the sleeping camp. The hopes that he had taken to bed with him the night before seemed far out of reach in the chilly light of the morning. He had budgeted three or four days for the summit; now he was entering the second week with no actual progress to report. He had come face-to-face with his own limitations as a negotiator. First of all, he was overly ambitious. He wanted to fix the entire problem of the Middle East. That was naive. He wasn’t certain now that he could solve even a tiny portion of the conflict. His original vision—that Sadat and Begin could find their own solution to their problems—had failed. Their hatred and distrust for each other really did seem to be three thousand years old. The American proposal was also a failure. Both sides were using it to attack the other, demanding that unworkable formulations be inserted in the text for no clear reason other than to alienate the other side. Carter had an engineer’s conviction that any problem can be solved if it is attacked with conviction, intelligence, and persistence. Those were qualities he had in abundance, but he was beginning to see that human problems have their own irrational logic, which might be more responsive to the touch of a magician or a psychiatrist than an engineer.
As a result of his ambition, Carter had done a poor job of setting priorities. Everything was on the table, but what was most important? Should he divide the issues into different categories; for instance, setting aside Gaza and the West Bank? Carter’s inability to delegate authority was also beginning to take its toll. While others could rest, or go to the movies or play Ping-Pong, Carter felt that his presence was essential. But he was wearing down, getting only a few hours of sleep a night, and exhaustion was clouding his mind.
His impatience was a problem as well. If Carter let his restlessness run away with him, the project was certainly doomed, but there was a midterm election coming up in two months, and Carter should be out campaigning. The tide was still out on the economy, the prime rate was 20 percent, energy prices were peaking, and the shah of Iran was about to be pushed off his Peacock Throne by a radical cleric. Rapacious political opponents in Carter’s own party were sharpening their knives. How long could the president of the United States be away from his office? Or, for that matter, the president of Egypt or the prime minister of Israel? If Sadat and Begin failed to get an agreement they could live with, Carter’s impetuous decision to hold the summit could bring them all down. He was going to have to come up with a new strategy. It had to be today. He couldn’t hold these men here even a few more hours unless he could offer them a new pathway to peace.
When he passed Sadat’s cabin on his way back from his bicycle ride, Carter was reminded of the danger he had placed him in. They were supposed to meet later that morning for Sadat to provide the Egyptian response to the American proposal, but as he rode past Carter saw Sadat on the porch of his cabin engaged in a violent argument with his top advisers. It was a very disturbing scene. Carter returned to Aspen Lodge with a feeling of foreboding.
When Sadat finally arrived for the meeting later that morning, he was pale and shaken. He had a paper in his hand, but it was not the American proposal. Instinctively, Carter felt that Sadat had come to tell him that the negotiations were over. Stalling, Carter suggested that they sit beside the swimming pool, in hopes that a different environment might lighten the mood. He didn’t want Sadat to say the words that were on his tongue or perhaps even scripted for him on that paper that he gripped so anxiously.
Carter was closer to Sadat than to any other world leader—indeed, he felt almost like a brother to him. That relationship was also at stake. He could only imagine the pressure that Sadat was under. Instead of talking about the proposal, Carter painted a portrait of Egypt at peace. Right now, Sadat had five army divisions lined up against Israel, which handicapped Egypt in fulfilling its natural role as the leader of the Arab world and the most important country on the African continent. Once Carter and Sadat put the Israeli-Egyptian dispute to rest, the two of them could move on to other problems besieging the region—in Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Ethiopia.
Sadat dreamed of such a partnership. He prided himself on his astuteness in world politics; but this morning he would not take the bait. Israel had no intention of signing a peace agreement, he said; meantime, in the process of trying to appease Begin, the Americans and the Egyptians were putting forward proposals that would alienate the Arab world and inevitably push Egypt and America into separate camps.
Thankfully, Sadat never read the paper he had in his hand, but he still seemed upset and uncertain when he left. One of the lessons that each party to the talks was beginning to learn was that, like war, making peace has unforeseen perils. The most important thing that Egypt hoped to gain from the summit was a closer relationship with the U.S., drawing upon the friendship of Sadat and Carter; but in the process of trying to achieve that, they might inadvertently sabotage the basis for any relationship at all.
Unbeknownst to the Americans, Begin had ordered his delegation to issue a declaration that the talks were at an end, but worded in such a fashion as to suggest that the Israelis weren’t pulling the plug themselves, and stating that they were “ready to continue with negotiations anytime, anyplace.” Weizman and Dayan realized that, no matter what language they used, deserting Camp David now would leave Carter’s initiative and perhaps his presidency in ruins. What would that do to Israel’s relationship with the U.S.? How long could Israel endure without American political, military, and economic support? “This is going to end with us clearing out of here,” Weizman warned his fellow Israelis. “But Sadat will remain—and that’s the worst thing of all.”
Begin was unyielding. He had given up on the summit. “I shall ask for a meeting with Carter today,” he told his delegates. “I’ll present our views to him and tell him what we intend to tell the Israeli people and world public opinion.”
Dayan left the meeting of the Israeli delegation with all hope bled out of him. On his way to his cabin, he ran into Sam Lewis, the astute American ambassador to Israel. “There’s no sense to these meetings and negotiations,” Dayan told Lewis curtly. He said he was leaving for Israel right away. Of all the members of the Israeli delegation, Dayan had been the most creative. Now he was walking out on the proceedings. The one person who seemed most invested in getting agreement had surrendered.
Weizman followed Dayan to his cabin. The foreign minister was squatting on the floor, packing his suitcase.
“Moshe,” Weizman said. “Don’t be hasty. I still have faith.”
Vance also rushed over to the Israeli cabin to plead for patience. Dayan advised him to abandon the big issues—such as the Sinai settlements—and find some limited item they could agree upon to save face. Vance rejected this idea. The whole point of Camp David was to resolve the main problems standing in the way of peace, not to produce a symbolic gesture that would leave the situation essentially unchanged. Dayan shrugged. He said he had done his best. History would show that the conversation between the two of them was the last chance to salvage something, he told Vance, and that had failed.
WEIZMAN RESPONDED TO the president’s summons and found Carter poring over a giant map of Sinai. The White House had requested a map of the peninsula that was fifteen feet by twenty-two feet—the exact dimensions of the Camp David billiards room. Carter had spread it out over the floor and spent a considerable amount of time on his knees examining every wadi and oasis in the region. He told Weizman that he had decided to break the American proposal into two parts: one was to be the grand bargain he hoped would resolve the Middle East conflict; the other would specifically deal with the Sinai settlements in order to achieve a separate peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. From the beginning, the Israelis had hoped to separate the two issues; the trick for Carter would be in linking them in a way that would be acceptable to Sadat.
Carter took his yellow legal pad and spent thirty minutes drafting a proposal to resolve the Sinai dispute. Then he walked over to Sadat’s cabin. Sadat read the six-page document in Carter’s precise and legible handwriting. It was titled “Framework for a Settlement in Sinai.”
“In order to achieve peace between them, Israel and Egypt agree to negotiate in good faith with a goal of concluding within three months of signing this framework a peace treaty between them,” the draft began. “All of the principles of UN Resolution 242 will apply in this resolution.” The outstanding issues of Sinai, including the “full exercise of Egyptian sovereignty up to the internationally recognized border between Egypt and mandated Palestine,” as well as the disposition of the airfields and the stationing of military forces, “will be resolved by negotiations between the parties.” The ambiguity of the document was obvious—the framework only said that the problems would be negotiated—but Carter wanted an explicit declaration by each party that if they settled these issues, there would be peace between the two countries.
After less than twenty minutes, Sadat made two small changes in the text, both of which favored the Israeli position. “It’s all right,” he told Carter.
Evening arrived, and so did the rain. Carter trudged through the mud to Begin’s cabin, where the Israelis were gathered. Carter did not intend to show them the Sinai draft yet, in part to slow things down, but he made a point of shaking hands with each member of the delegation, promising that an important new American draft would be given to them the next day. He then offered an inspired and unconventional notion. “Let me suggest that one Israeli and one Egyptian delegate sit down with me for the drafting,” he said. Acknowledging the personal hostility that had poisoned the talks so far, Carter was effectively cutting Begin and Sadat out of the process. Carter, however, would remain. This was unprecedented. Even at Camp David, when members of the delegations met, they convened with their peers—Vance would meet with Kamel or Dayan—but the idea that the president of the United States would negotiate with anyone other than a head of state was hard to fathom. Carter already had an idea of the Israeli he wanted to work with: Aharon Barak, who was there simply as a lawyer, not even a member of the Begin government. As for the prime minister himself, Carter suggested that they postpone the meeting that Begin had requested for that evening.
Begin took immediate exception to that. “I beg your pardon, Mr. President,” he said. “I have asked to meet you tonight for a very important discussion, maybe the most important I have ever had in my life.”
Carter had been intending to eat dinner with the Israeli delegation, but Begin now stood up and announced, “I am going to shave for my meeting with the president. The others can go and watch a movie.”
“In that case,” Carter said, “I must also go and shave.”
HASSAN EL-TOHAMY CONTINUED to pursue Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He confided that he had been up all night, “in communication.”
“With whom?” Boutros-Ghali asked.
“Up,” Tohamy said, pointing to the heavens. Once again he pressured his fellow delegate to turn to Islam.
“Such a grave decision requires much deliberation,” Boutros-Ghali replied.
Sadat was amused to learn of Tohamy’s missionary efforts. “Do not underestimate Boutros, Hassan,” he said. “You will convert to Christianity before he converts to Islam!”
Tohamy continued to cast a spell over Sadat that the other delegates could not account for. During the heated discussion on his porch that morning, Sadat blurted out, “It could be really great if we could swing this idea of one square mile!” When Mohamed Kamel asked what he meant, Tohamy jumped in to explain his scheme. Israel would withdraw from one square mile of Jerusalem and an Arab or Islamic flag would be hoisted over that territory. When Tohamy finished, he turned to Sadat. “There’s one thing I ask of you, Rayyis, namely that you fulfill your promise of appointing me governor-general of Jerusalem,” he said. He fantasized riding into Jerusalem on a white steed. “This is my life’s dream, and I pray to God you will make it come true before I die!”
Kamel recoiled. Imagine Tohamy ruling over Jerusalem!
At the beginning of the conference, there had seemed to be a consensus on all sides that Jerusalem should remain united, with unimpeded access to the holy places and complete freedom of worship. An independent authority would govern the city itself. This was very much what the UN had in mind for Jerusalem when it partitioned Israel and Palestine in 1947. But the more the Egyptians and the Israelis talked about Jerusalem, the less they agreed. The one issue they thought they could resolve became radioactive because of the conflicting religious claims to the city. The Americans and the Israelis wanted to put the matter off until the end of the summit, but it refused to go away because of Tohamy’s emphatic campaigning and his inexplicable influence over Sadat.
Within the rising element of Islamic radicals, Jerusalem played a powerful emotional role. Sadat’s trip there had already sent a jolt through the entire Muslim world. Jerusalem was a symbol of the Palestinian movement; pictures of the golden Dome of the Rock were everywhere as a reminder of the claim that Arabs had on the city. Jerusalem had also become a kind of marker for Islam’s standing in history. Control of the religious sites had passed back and forth from pagan to Jewish, followed by the Romans, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the British, and the Arabs. Each of these powers had promoted and exploited the city’s cult of holiness. The Old Testament repeatedly asserts that Jerusalem is where God lives and where his power is most efficacious. That promise has drawn pilgrims to the city for centuries. Muslims also endorse the idea that whoever prays in Jerusalem—or al-Quds, as it is called in Arabic, the Holy Place—has all his sins absolved and becomes as innocent as a newborn child. Each of the three religions believes that Jerusalem will be the scene of the Last Judgment. Evangelical Christians and Jews say that the Messiah will appear on the Mount of Olives and enter the Old City through the Golden Gate. In Islam, there is a belief that, on that last day, the Kaaba—the holiest place in Mecca—will be spiritually transported to Jerusalem and that the dead will rise and greet each other in jubilation on the streets of the city. Because such legends are believed to be the literal truth, the struggle for Jerusalem never ends.
These dangerous currents created a charge that made Jerusalem almost untouchable at the summit. Genuine, comprehensive peace in the Middle East of the sort that Sadat and Carter envisioned would sap the radical Islamist trend; on the other hand, complete failure would appease the naysayers and allow Sadat to return to the Arab embrace. It was in the middle area of compromise where real peril lay.
Sadat knew that he was mixing highly volatile materials, but these same disparate elements were a part of his own personality. He had always been attracted to Islamist politics, and in his youthful revolutionary days, he had met several times with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a clandestine organization that was destined to shape the political climate of the entire Arab region and give birth to even more radical spin-offs in the future. Eventually Sadat served as a conduit between the Brothers and Nasser’s underground junta-in-waiting, the Free Officers. Sadat even arranged a back channel between Banna and the palace, through the king’s private doctor.
Following the mortifying defeat of Egypt and other Arab armies in the 1948 War of Independence, the clandestine Muslim Brotherhood boomed in membership. The population of Egypt at that time was about eighteen million, and as many as one million of them were in the Brotherhood. Some of Sadat’s fellow coup plotters in the military also joined the Brothers, swearing allegiance on a Quran and a revolver. The terrorist arm of the organization, called the secret apparatus, bombed theaters, harassed Jews, and turned on the government, assassinating prominent officials. The king himself felt sufficiently threatened by the Muslim Brothers that the palace had Banna killed in 1949. But the Brotherhood survived its founder’s death.
When Nasser’s revolution took power in 1952, he tried to work with the Brotherhood, appointing its premier propagandist, Sayyid Qutb, as an adviser to the Revolutionary Command Council. But the Brothers and the Free Officers had practically nothing in common. Nasser’s dream was to unite the Arabs, with Egypt at the center of a secular, socialist republic. The Brothers had a similar but wholly incompatible goal: to recreate a Muslim theocracy, called a caliphate, which had been dormant since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The tension between these opposing utopian ideals would roil Egypt for decades to come. Nasser came to wage an unending campaign against the Brotherhood, imprisoning its leadership and, in 1966, hanging Qutb, who had been convicted of plotting to overthrow the government.
After Nasser died in 1970, Sadat looked to the Islamists for allies, calculating that they would stand with him against the Nasserites and Communists. He began a dialogue with the imprisoned Brotherhood leaders, which ended with the new president allowing the Brothers back into society as long as they renounced violence. Sadat didn’t realize that there had been a generational split among the Islamists. Radical new groups were already forming, which reached far beyond Egypt’s borders. He had granted the Islamists freedom, but they were watching him, and waiting.
AT EIGHT P.M., a clean-shaven Begin appeared at Carter’s cabin. “This is the most serious talk I have ever had in my life, except once when I discussed the future of Israel with Jabotinsky,” Begin said, invoking his political mentor. Then he proceeded to reject everything in the American proposal.
The first subject on Begin’s agenda was UN Resolution 242. Yes, Israel had signed it, he admitted, but he was unwilling to cite it in the “Framework for Peace.” To bolster his case, the prime minister pulled out a number of old press clippings from different countries about the resolution that omitted the telltale phrase “inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war.” To Carter, the yellowed clippings seemed weirdly beside the point, but Begin insisted that Israel could not agree under any circumstances to sign a document that included this language.
Then for the next hour, Begin spoke passionately about Sinai. He referred to a conversation he had had with an Egyptian general, who told him it would take only seven hours for the Egyptian Army to cross the Suez Canal and move to the border of Israel. “Seven hours!” Begin stressed to Carter. “When we evacuate Sinai there won’t be one Israeli soldier, or one Israeli tank, between that Egyptian Army on this side of the Suez Canal, and on the other, to stop them. And in seven hours they can be on our southern border and threaten the civilian population of our country.” It was all the more reason that the Israeli settlements would have to remain. “Mr. President, do we ask for one square kilometer of Sinai?” he asked. “Didn’t we produce a peace plan in accordance with which all the peninsula will go to Egypt?” Under Israel’s proposal, however, those thirteen settlements must remain; nothing else stood in the way of a hypothetical blitzkrieg move by Egyptian forces. Begin vowed that he would resign before agreeing to withdraw from them. “I will not surrender to Sadat’s ultimatums or threats.”
Begin turned to the West Bank—“Judea and Samaria”—and Gaza. They were a part of Greater Israel, Begin insisted, “the land of our forefathers, which we have never forgotten during exile, when we were a persecuted minority, humiliated, killed, our blood shed, burned alive.…” Israel would be perfectly entitled to declare its sovereignty over these regions, but Begin had chosen to find an alternative solution. “We wracked our brains and wounded our hearts, and we found a way,” he said. “Let the question of sovereignty remain open. And let us deal with the human beings. With the peoples on both sides. Let us give the Palestinian Arabs autonomy and the Palestinian Jews security, and we shall live together in human dignity.”
By “autonomy” Begin meant that the Palestinians would be given nominal authority to rule themselves, but Israel would retain a veto and military control over the districts. Since Israel was not formally annexing the land in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, Begin contended, the whole question of the “acquisition of territory” was moot.
Carter brought up the proposal of an Arab flag on the Temple Mount. The Saudis were also pressing for this symbolic gesture. “Never!” Begin cried. “What will happen when the Messiah comes? After all, that’s where we are supposed to build the Temple, and agreeing to an Arab flag would mean giving up our faith.” He cited the Book of Psalms, 137:5–6, saying, “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget. May my tongue stick to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem beyond all my delights.” It is a phrase every Jewish male cites at his wedding when he breaks a glass in memory of the torment the city has endured since the glorious days of King David, who established the city as the eternal capital of the Jewish nation three thousand years ago. (Begin neglected to quote the end of that Psalm, a paean to revenge and enduring hatred: “Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock!”)
Jerusalem was simply nonnegotiable.
Finally, Begin reached in his pocket and pulled out the declaration he had prepared. Carter braced himself. There was no way to stall Begin, as he had done with Sadat. The statement had been softened with bland expressions of gratitude for Carter’s initiative, but essentially it declared the summit was at an end. When he finished reading, Begin added that he sincerely wished he could have signed Carter’s proposal, but he had to represent the will of the Israeli people.
By now, Carter was truly furious. He had suffered through Begin’s repetitive, contentious lecture for an hour and a half. He pointed out that public opinion polls in Israel repeatedly showed a substantial majority favoring peace, even if it meant an end to the settlements and the surrender of large amounts of the West Bank then under Israeli control. Carter said that he represented the Israeli people’s position better than Begin.
The meeting turned so nasty and personal that Carter finally stood up for Begin to leave. He accused the prime minister of being unreasonably obsessed with the question of settlements. Was Israel really willing to give up peace with its only formidable enemy, included unimpeded access to the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran, free trade and full diplomatic recognition from Egypt, an end to the economic boycott, Arab acceptance of an undivided Jerusalem, permanent security for Israel and the approbation of the entire world—all to keep a few illegal settlers on Egyptian land?
Begin responded enigmatically, saying that Israel did not want any territory in Sinai or the West Bank for the first five years. Carter had no idea what he meant. Later, Begin’s team explained he was saying that he would agree to “decide” the future of the West Bank after five years, rather than simply to “consider” it, as he had previously said.
It was late, and both men were tired and angry. The meeting had ended on an inconclusive note. Each of them had said things they regretted but were unwilling to call back. Was the summit over? As Begin wandered back in the dark to his cabin, it wasn’t clear what the next day would bring.