PROLOGUE
“exalted” people: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
Rosalynn wept at: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
He had studied: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 32.
The question of what: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 669; “Demographics of Israel,” Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/demographics.html.
should be conquered: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai; Shilon, Menachem Begin: A Life, p. 147; Hasten, I Shall Not Die!, p. 241.
a crank, a fascist: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 450.
“Begin is a distinctly”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 174.
“Teachers were beaten”: Isidore Abramowitz et al., “New Palestine Party,” New York Times, Dec. 4, 1948.
Arabs from the West Bank: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 707.
about 1,500 Jewish settlers: Figures for the settler population in 1972 were 1,182 in the West Bank, 700 in the Gaza Strip, 8,649 in East Jerusalem, 77 in Golan Heights, for a total of 10,608. “Israeli Settler Population 1972–2006,” Foundation for Middle East Peace, http://www.fmep.org/settlement_info/settlement-info-and-tables/stats-data/israeli-settler-population-1972-2006.
The governor began speaking: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 340 fn.
Walter Mondale: Interview with Walter Mondale.
Former Secretary of State: Interview with Gerald Rafshoon.
Carter’s closest advisers: Carter, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land, p. 20; interview with Walter Mondale.
in his office safe: Steven Hochman, personal communication.
“Heavy support”: Hamilton Jordan memorandum to President Carter, June 1977.
“shining light”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 283.
“dearest friend”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 24.
“It was like talking”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“President Carter knows”: “Begin Bars a Return to ’67 Borders,” New York Times, May 23, 1977.
The profiles Carter was studying: Jimmy Carter speech, “The Role of Intelligence in Preparing for Camp David,” President Carter and the Role of Intelligence in the Camp David Accords, a conference at the Carter Center, Nov. 12, 2013.
The resulting profiles: Jerrold Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit,” Studies in Intelligence (spring 1979). The actual CIA profiles are still classified, but both Carter and Jerrold Post, who prepared the profiles, were helpful in describing the general features of the analyses.
The CIA noted his: Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit.”
They had each spent: Begin claimed he spent two years in the Vilna prison and in a “Soviet concentration camp.” According to Temko, his actual confinement lasted about a year, from September 1940 to September 1941; two-thirds of his incarceration was spent in Vilna. Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 64. Sadat spent five years in prison.
He was struck by: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 26.
“If I drown”: “The World: Sadat: The Village Elder,” Time, Nov. 28, 1977.
She was chosen: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 8–9.
Umm Mohamed: Sadat, My Father and I, p. 3.
occasionally beaten: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 10-11.
“How I loved”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 3.
According to the oral: See for instance the poem by Salah Abdel Sabur, “The Execution of Zahran,” in Aida O. Azouqa, “Frederico García Lorca and Salah ’Abd al-Sabur as Composers of Modern Ballads: A Comparative Study,” Journal of Arabic Literature 36, no. 2. (2005).
“The ballad dwells”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 6. Sadat’s account of the incident is somewhat at variance with modern sources. See Turner, Suez 1956, pp. 39–40; Mustafa Bassiouni, “A Modern-Day Dinshaway in Egypt?” Al Akhbar English, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/2887.
“the odious sight”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 10.
“nothing but a scrap”: Quoted in Yunan Labib Rizk, “Gandhi in Egypt,” Al-Ahram, Dec. 19–25, 2002.
“I began to imitate”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 13.
Sadat’s obsession with: Ibid., p. 21.
“I was in our village”: Ibid., p. 13.
“My Dear Hitler”: Israeli, Man of Defiance, p. 19.
They were the only whites: Jimmy Carter remarks at the Civil Rights Summit, LBJ Library, April 8, 2014.
“The constant struggle”: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 230.
“Believer President”: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 39.
He was baptized into: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 113.
“nigger lover”: Balmer, Redeemer, p. 8.
“Sir, I stood 59th”: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 59.
“He would ask me”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 34.
She would note that: Ibid., p. 35.
“God did not intend”: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 81.
the only white man: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 66.
“I could not believe”: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 264.
“our kind of man”: Balmer, Redeemer, pp. 30–31.
Carter himself was not linked: Glad, Jimmy Carter, pp. 134–35.
“I am not a land baron”: Ibid., p. 136.
“What’s the matter?”: Oral History of Jimmy Carter, Georgia Political History Program, May 4, 1993; Godbold, Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter, p. 166. Rabhan later spent time in an Iranian prison—as a hostage, Carter claimed—and then was convicted of bank fraud and served four and a half years in U.S. federal prison. “Despite His Shady Record, USDA Backed Borrower,” Gilbert M. Gaul, Washington Post, Dec. 4, 2007.
In 1972, he expelled: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1295. Kissinger puts the number of Soviet troops expelled as fifteen thousand, whereas Ezer Weizman estimates twenty thousand. Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 243.
The Israelis were convinced: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 67.
“I am ready to travel”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, pp. 11–12; “I Knew Sadat,” Al Jazeera English, Sept. 28, 2009. The translations of the two accounts vary slightly.
the first in Israel’s history: Richard Steele et al., “Sadat in Israel,” Newsweek, Nov. 28, 1977.
Ten thousand soldiers: Elias Shourani, “The Reaction in Israel to the Sadat Initiative,” Journal of Palestine Studies 7, no. 2 (winter 1978).
in addition to the: Eliahu Ben Elissar in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 25.
Without sheet music: Ibid.
Sharpshooters were stationed: Quandt, Camp David, p. 147.
Sadat’s enemies were: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 142.
“Madame, I’ve waited a long time”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
“Oh, no, sir”: Steele et al., “Sadat in Israel”; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
Sadat was convinced: Ibid., p. 288. Heikal suggests that this conjecture derived from a comment Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made to Sadat shortly after the 1973 war. Heikal, Secret Channels, pp. 223–24.
“to the Kaaba to pray”: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 98. Elsewhere, Heikal discusses the taboo against Israel extensively. Heikal, Secret Channels.
As the presidential motorcade: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
The Israelis had no: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
All along the way: Ronald Koven, “Sadat Jokes, Laughs with Golda,” Washington Post, Nov. 22, 1977.
Across the street: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 61.
“All that construction!”: Ibid., p. 26.
One of Sadat’s bodyguards: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, pp. 73–74.
“Take these out”: John 2:16.
One witness describes: Armstrong, Jerusalem, p. 274.
“The Crusades have now ended”: Montefiore, Jerusalem, p. 439–40.
At the End of Days: Angelika Neuwirth, “The Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Islam,” in Rosovsky, ed., City of the Great King, pp. 113–14.
“Sadat, what”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 266.
“a kippah”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 65.
“All this befell us”: Ibid., p. 66.
Some were shot: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 107.
“A day of retribution”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 5. Shilon says that Begin’s sister, Rachel Halperin, related a different story. “Some time before the mass murders, her father decided to sneak out without approval from the area where the Jews had been gathered in order to properly bury one of the town’s most prominent Jews.… When Ze’ev Dov was approached by a Nazi officer who questioned him, he answered, ‘This is what I have to do.’ In response, the officer shot him.” Ibid., pp. 5–6.
“May God guide our”: Ronald Koven, “Sadat’s Day in the Holy City,” Washington Post, Nov. 21, 1977.
“We have to concentrate”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 21.
“Every side wants”: Cohen, Culture and Conflict in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, p. 133.
permitted to applaud: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 66.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Anwar Sadat address to Knesset, Nov. 20, 1977.
“We have to prepare for war”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 33.
“No sir”: Menachem Begin remarks in Knesset, Nov. 20, 1977.
“His IQ is probably”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“Begin is absolutely”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 193.
“Up the wall”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 304.
“He exhibited a rich”: Samuel Lewis, “The Camp David Peace Process,” in Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 57.
“Against the eyes”: Temko, To Win or to Die, pp. 17–18.
In private, Begin was: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 165.
He devoutly believed: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai.
award citizenship to every Arab: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 219.
He went to temple: Interview with Zev Chafets; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 154.
“Is this not a startlingly accurate prophecy”: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 396.
“There were only 650,000 Jews”: “President’s Meeting with Prime Minister Begin of Israel,” in Howard, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, vol. 8: Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978, pp. 336–52; Avner, The Prime Ministers, pp. 421–22.
“Peasants after all”: Ibid., 336–52.
“new specimen of human being”: Begin, The Revolt, p. xxv.
“It is axiomatic”: Ibid., p. xxvi.
His earliest memory: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 21. Temko says that Begin was not actually present when the soldiers flogged two Jews, one of whom died afterward. The doctor who attempted to save him was the Begins’ downstairs neighbor, who himself died of a heart attack a few days later. The event caused a great deal of distress in the Begin household, which is probably what Begin recalled.
“It was a popular sport”: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 436.
“to beat those who beat us”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 32.
Even as a precocious: Ibid., p. 34.
In 1929 Begin experienced: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 10. Shilon gives the date of Jabotinsky’s visit to Brisk as 1929; Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 37, makes the date 1931. Begin himself says that he joined Betar at age fifteen, which makes the Shilon date more likely. Begin, White Nights, p. 53.
“Jabotinsky became God”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 37.
“Emotionally, my attitude”: Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall,” Nov. 4, 1923, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/ironwall.html.
Begin later admitted: Carter, White House Diary, p. 151.
“All you journalists”: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 104.
“It was as if a messenger”: “Sacred Mission,” Time, Nov. 28, 1977.
“The Middle East after”: Sadat interview with ABC, Nov. 27, 1977.
Palestinians in Athens: Alfred L. Atherton and Harold H. Saunders, “Analysis of Arab-Israeli Developments,” U.S. Dept. of State, no. 295, Nov. 19, 1977.
That was too much: Quandt, Camp David, p. 102.
“It’s a very interesting plan”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 120.
“Not a single Israeli settlement”: Ibid., p. 147.
If the Israelis: Ibid., p. 195.
He made it clear: Zion and Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks,” Part II, New York Times, Jan. 21, 1979.
“Everyone who went”: “Cairo Expels Envoys of Cyprus in Dispute over Airport Battle,” Associated Press, Feb. 20, 1978.
Sadat responded by: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 125; Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 295.
The first person they: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 268.
Most of them were: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 121.
“Those who killed Jews”: Henry Kamm, “Begin Hints Strongly at Reprisal for Raid That Killed 37 Israelis,” New York Times, Mar. 12, 1978.
Carter was appalled: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 311.
“wounded in the heart”: Ibid., p. 311.
“not willing to withdraw”: Ibid., p. 312.
Begin’s intransigence had destroyed: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 247.
He told his aides: Zion and Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks.”
“nothing for nothing”: Ibid.
“pygmies”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 265.
“my economy”: Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit.”
“If the Middle East”: “I Knew Sadat”; Sabry, Al-Sadat, pp. 447–48.
“If I had to choose one”: James Fallows, “The Passionless Presidency,” Atlantic, May 1, 1979.
Carter made lists: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 483.
He would take the time: Interview with Philip J. Wise Jr.
“I felt that God wanted peace”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
In July 1978: Interview with Rosalynn Carter; Carter, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land, p. 36.
“It’s so beautiful here”: Interview with Rosalynn Carter; Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 238.
His vice president: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 239.
For Carter to invest: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
“If you fail, we’re done”: Walter Mondale comments, “Camp David 25th Anniversary Forum.”
“Our main objective”: Cyrus Vance, “An Overview of the Camp David Talks,” undated memo to the president.
“First Egyptian-Jewish peace”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 220.
“We wait for peace”: Jeremiah 8:15.
DAY ONE
“Cuba is absolutely lousy”: Nelson, The President Is at Camp David, p. 20.
“I couldn’t for the life”: Quoted in Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 281.
“I don’t know what”: Ibid., p. 282.
Carter, a tight-fisted: Gerald Rafshoon, personal communication.
“Cabins,” Carter responded: Gulley and Reese, Breaking Cover, pp. 270–71.
“A sort of Presidential”: Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 40.
Six miles from Camp: Ted Gup, “Underground Government: A Guide to America’s Doomsday Bunkers,” Washington Post, May 31, 1992. Other estimates of the size of Site R are much larger.
The staff would: Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 296.
“bullshit artists”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
A number of policemen: National Intelligence Daily Cable, Jan. 19, 1977.
The CIA warned Carter: “National Intelligence Estimate, Egypt—1977,” undated CIA document.
In Israel, steep inflation: “Economic Consequences of a Middle East Peace Settlement: The Best Case,” unsigned CIA memorandum, July 1, 1977.
“What can I do?”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 307.
“There was a curious”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 323.
Anwar and Jehan argued: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 241.
Even talking to: Interview with Abdul Raouf al-Reedy.
“His knowledge of the”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 49.
“He has something godly”: Baha’ al-Din, Muhawarati ma’a as-Sadat, p. 149.
Tohamy was constantly: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 194.
“We all thought”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 134.
“What we are after”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 283.
“here in my pocket”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 328.
“Israel has to withdraw”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“We can do it”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“It will be like a resort”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 220.
“like a bunch of boy scouts”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 342.
“prima donnas”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 237.
reflective of the intimate and contentious style: Cohen, Culture and Conflict in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, p. 141.
no more than a couple of days: Iris Berlatzky interview with Elyakim Rubinstein, Menachem Begin Archives.
“I’m glad to see you”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 344.
“Mayflower generation”: Ibid., p. 140.
“We were seasoned”: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, p. 12.
“As for the Egyptians”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 11.
“Imagine that you’re Arabs”: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, p. 163.
“It was only after”: Ibid., p. 52.
He always thought: Tamir, A Soldier in Search of Peace, p. 37.
“Come and see me!”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 344.
Tohamy’s years in: Interview with Nabil el-Arabi. Arabi says that the “dirty work” included arresting General Mohamed Neguib, the figurehead leader of the 1952 Free Officers coup, driving him into the desert, and threatening to kill him.
a kind of guru: Interview with Dan Pattir.
He openly spoke: Interview with Abdel Raouf al-Reedy.
When he was the Egyptian: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 255.
He was always spreading: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 134.
just stopped a revolution: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 323.
“Mr. Tohamy”: Interviews with Nabil el-Arabi, Ahmed Abul-Gheit, and William Quandt.
Hearing the story: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, pp. 135–36. Ghorbal, Su’ud wa inhiyar, p. 140.
To keep the meeting: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 43.
“a figure with status”: Auda, Hasan al-tuhami yaftahu malaffatahu min ihtilal filistin ila kamb difid, pp. 120; Arabi, Taba, Camp David, al-jidar al-’azil, p. 94.
“This is Dayan!”: Auda, Hasan al-tuhami yaftahu malaffatahu min ihtilal filistin ila kamb difid, pp. 122–23.
“His request for secrecy”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 45.
“Moshe, you are the”: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 257.
Sadat would only consent: Dayan, “Highlights from Meeting of September 16, 1977, 21.00,” Prime Minister’s Official Israel State Archives, http://www.archives.gov.il/archivegov_eng/publications/electronicpirsum/sadatvisit/sadatvisitdoclist.htm.
“Otherwise, how could such”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 52.
He went on to say: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 11.
“But Tohamy said you were”: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 262. Hermann Frederick Eilts adds that Tohamy apparently told Sadat, after the first Morocco meeting with Dayan, “I’ve gotten Jerusalem for you!” Eilts in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 40. Elyakim Rubinstein, who was Dayan’s aide at the time of the Tohamy talks, says that Dayan told Tohamy he would report the request for a full withdrawal to Begin but could not guarantee it. Elyakim Rubinstein interview, conducted by Dr. Nina Sagie, May 5, 1994, Menachem Begin Heritage Center; Rubinstein, Darkey Shalom, p. 14.
Egypt could foreseeably: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 236. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, reflects the opinion of many Arabs when he writes that Sadat only went to Jerusalem after Tohamy was assured by Dayan that “Israel would withdraw from every last inch of Egyptian territory in return for peace.” Al-Faisal, “Land First, Then Peace,” New York Times, Sept. 12, 2009.
America had provided: Brzezinski, “Strategy for Camp David,” memorandum for the president, Aug. 31, 1978.
Brzezinski came up with the idea: Quandt, Camp David, p. 171.
American team continued: Ibid., p. 203.
If Begin refused to budge: “Camp David: The Consequences of Failure,” CIA briefing book for Camp David, Aug. 31, 1978.
He brought the actual text: The letter states, “Should the U.S. desire in the future to put forward proposals of its own, it will make every effort to coordinate with Israel its proposals with a view to refraining from putting forward proposals that Israel would consider unsatisfactory.” Letter from President Ford to Prime Minister Rabin, Sept. 1, 1975.
“Mr. Prime Minister”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 222.
“Some people ridicule”: Ibid., pp. 222–23.
“Sadat insists”: Ibid., p. 222.
“If such a principle”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 346.
“The United States expects”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 223.
“Sadat is impulsive”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 244.
“What a paradise”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 224.
“We have a tough nut”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 346.
DAY TWO
Begin had seemed rigid: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 255.
“My program is ready”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 225.
As Carter read: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 341.
“Germany is the enemy”: Anwar Sadat, Pillar of Fire interview.
“I was not surprised”: Sadat, Safahat Majhula, p. 62.
Hekmat Fahmy: Pamela Andriotakis, “The Real Spy’s Story Reads Like Fiction and 40 Years Later Inspires a Best-Seller,” People, Dec. 15, 1980.
Sadat began spending nights: Sadat, Safahat Majhula, pp. 77–78. Jorgensen, Hitler’s Espionage Machine, p. 177; Pamela Andriotakis, “The Real Spy’s Story Reads Like Fiction and 40 Years Later Inspires a Best-Seller,” People, Dec. 15, 1980. The “best-seller” in question was Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca. The Nazi spies used an English-language version of Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca as the source book for their code.
his ten-month-old daughter: Sadat, My Father and I, p. 19.
It was during this period: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 20.
“eccentric clothes”: Ibid.
“murder society”: Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers, p. 59.
“limbering up”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 58.
“as unbreakable”: Sullivan, Sadat, p. 30.
“Apart from removing”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 60.
“Condemn me to death”: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 74.
the Iron Guard: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 21.
“My efforts at the”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 92.
once you began to talk: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 152.
“Do you remember when”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 265.
Kamel arrived at Camp: Interview with Abdul Raouf al-Reedy.
Vance had tried to pacify: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
“The Israeli attitude rests”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 303.
“How are you, Mr. President”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 226.
He usually slept: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, pp. 213–14; Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 171–72; Ibrahim, I’adat al-I’tibar lil-ra’is al-Sadat, pp. 45–47. Time magazine also noted Sadat’s occasional violation of the Islamic prohibition against alcohol, saying that he enjoyed “an occasional glass of wine, preferably an Egyptian red called Omar Khayyam.” “The Underrated Heir,” Time, May 17, 1971; Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 179.
It was rumored among: Interview with Zev Chafets; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 164.
Throughout his life: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 215; Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 307.
“President Sadat brought”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 227.
“We must turn over”: Ibid.
“Habemus papam”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 344.
“Further to the historic”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 228.
“Begin will blow up”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 245.
“like a rabbi”: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein.
“What chutzpah!”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, pp. 353–54.
the word he used was hadar: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 403.
“There is only one”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 257. Sam Lewis noted Begin’s lack of empathy; Lewis, “The Camp David Peace Process,” in Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 58. Yechiel Kadishai told me, “He loves everyone. Jews he loves more than others.”
“We can save them”: Kadishai, Yad Yemino, p. 54.
“Who is this boy?”: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai.
The organization that Begin: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 49. Other accounts have different measures of Irgun’s strength at the time; e.g., Gervasi says Irgun encompassed only six hundred men. Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 153. The same figure is repeated in Bell, Terror Out of Zion, p. 107. Shilon relied on actual minutes of Irgun proceedings.
“We shall fight”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 152.
“History and our observation”: Begin, The Revolt, p. 52.
Begin’s brilliant improvisations: Bruce Hoffman notes, “The Irgun’s campaign … established a revolutionary model that thereafter was emulated and embraced by both anticolonial- and postcolonial-era terrorist groups around the world.” Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, p. 46.
A shipment of diamonds: Joseph Kister, personal communication.
In July 1945, the British: Rami Shetivi, personal communication.
Begin went into hiding: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 166.
“He had lost his eye”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 57.
“He has large and parted”: Ibid.
“Are you also in favor”: Ibid., p. 58.
Irgun members were kidnapped: Haber, Menachem Begin, p. 141.
In some cases, refugees: “Exodus, 1945–1947,” in Lossin, Pillar of Fire.
more than a hundred thousand troops: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 170.
about one British soldier: Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, p. 50.
“We must retain”: Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers, p. 263.
“Evacuate the entire”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 177.
“to give orders”: “Smear Campaign Charged by Begin,” New York Times, Nov. 30, 1948.
Shaw claimed there was: John Shaw, Pillar of Fire interview.
Haganah ordered Begin: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 92.
Ben-Gurion then denounced: Louise Fischer, private communication.
“The Irgun is the enemy”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 178.
“days of pain”: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 52.
“We mourn the Jewish”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 93.
“5ft. 9in.”: photo inset, Neff, Warriors at Suez.
“He may be a Soviet”: British Foreign Office telegram to Washington, Nov. 13, 1948, in the Menachem Begin files of British Intelligence.
“He was made ‘better-looking’ ”: Undated newspaper clipping in Begin files of British Intelligence, probably summer of 1946.
They were already spending: Turner, Suez 1956, p. 80.
“unworkable”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 187.
Sensing victory, Begin: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 102.
“For hundreds of years”: Jake Eyre, “The Story of Irgun: Terrorism, Propaganda, and the State of Israel,” thesis, Norwich University, Nov. 16, 2010, p. 18.
“anti-Hebrew activities”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 106.
The hanging of the British: Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, p. 53.
terror works: See, for instance, Bruce Hoffman, “The Rationality of Terrorism and Other Forms of Political Violence: Lessons from the Jewish Campaign in Palestine, 1939–1947,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 22, no. 2 (May 2011): 258–72.
Many years later, American: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 303.
“Osama bin Laden read”: Bruce Hoffman, personal communication; Al-Bahri, Guarding Bin Laden, p. 77.
“precisely the reverse”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 150.
DAY THREE
“very tough”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 236.
“Palestinians!”: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 347–48.
valued it as a foil: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“What do you actually want”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 348.
“assing around”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“Throw away reticence”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 349.
“Sinai settlements!”: Ibid., p. 347.
“Moses”: Quran 28:30.
“I have come down”: Exodus 3:7–8.
“Let my people go”: Exodus 7:15.
“If you remove this plague”: Quran 7:133.
“that you may tell in”: Exodus 10:2.
“I will pass through the land”: Exodus 12:6–13.
“Go forth from among”: Exodus 12:31.
“Is it because there are no graves”: Exodus 14:11.
“My strength and my refuge”: Exodus 15:2–3.
“We saved the Children”: Quran 44:30-31.
There may have been Jews: Sand, The Invention of the Land of Israel, p. 118.
Israel is not cited: Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, p. 57.
According to the Bible: Numbers 1:46; Exodus 12:37–8.
Marching ten abreast: Cline, From Eden to Exile, p. 74.
“Do not spare him”: 1 Samuel 15:3.
In his parents’ generation”: Haber, Menachem Begin, p. 20.
“for you were once aliens”: Exodus 22:20; 23:9.
“Little by little”: Exodus 23:30–33.
The vast migration: Cline, From Eden to Exile, pp. 85–89.
“But they broke”: Quran, 5:13.
Begin, with his granitic: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“knowing we would all be”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 237.
“We will not allow”: Ibid., p. 238.
“I thought that”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 351.
screaming at each other: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
“Security, yes!”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 351.
“clean-shaved”: Interview with Ahmed Abul-Gheit.
“Minimum confidence does not”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 353.
Weirdly, there were moments: Ibid.
There were about 800,000: Fischbach, Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries, p. 3.
75,000 to 80,000: Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, p. 2.
Egypt was still occupied: Aly, Feldman, and Shikaki, Arabs and Israelis, p. 75.
“didn’t think about the possibility”: Sadat, Safahat Majhula, pp. 185–86.
The total number of Arab troops: Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 35. At the time of the second truce, on July 18, 1948, the CIA estimated total Arab forces, including irregulars, at 27,000, with another 19,800 “near Palestine.” By comparison, it listed the forces of Haganah at 85,000, Irgun at 12,000, and Stern Gang at 800. “Possible Developments from the Palestine Truce,” Enclosure B, Central Intelligence Agency, July 27, 1948.
“We swung out to sea”: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, p. 67.
That first run was scarcely: Morris, 1948, p. 240.
killing indiscriminately: About Dayan’s raid on July 11, 1948, Benny Morris writes, “The troops appear to have shot at everyone in their path.” Ibid., pp. 289–90.
He led his men into: Shavit, My Promised Land, p. 107.
His greatest worry: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 109.
five million dollars: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 251.
Some of them wept: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 120.
“It’s an attempt to run”: Haber, Menachem Begin, p. 222.
“Enough! You’re surrounded”: Teveth, Moshe Dayan, p. 148.
“Jews do not shoot”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 120.
“Our men called on Irgun”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 96. Whether Dayan was actually present at the exchange of gunfire is unclear. His account suggests that he was; however, he had turned over the command to a subordinate, and other reports differ. Cf. Teveth, Moshe Dayan, p. 148; Haber, Menachem Begin, p. 220.
“Suddenly, we were attacked”: Begin, The Revolt, p. 173.
In its panicked flight: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 90.
“We must all perish”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 120.
Begin, who couldn’t swim: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 90.
Sixteen of his men: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 122.
Three members of the: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 91.
“the most dreadful event”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 122.
“Never!”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 358.
“I still dream of”: Ibid.
“Anyone observing the two”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, pp. 136–37.
“I’m sure you will get”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 241.
That evening the Carters: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 248.
Such a display belonged: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 170.
“goldfish capital”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 243.
ABC News had secured: Kays, Frogs and Scorpions, p. 122.
Barbara Walters was missing: Interview with Gerald Rafshoon.
“I’ve given so much”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David; Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 248.
“I know you are all very”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 363.
“It was I who made the peace”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 307.
“I must have also”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 361.
As the Americans auditioned: Ibid., p. 363.
“Stalemate here would just provide”: Ibid.
“There must be a way”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 247.
Rosalynn had known Jimmy: Ibid., p. 9.
“running away”: Ibid, p. 13.
“Just having these thoughts”: Ibid., p. 14.
“The time has come to tell”: Ibid., pp. 16–17.
“My childhood really ended”: Ibid., p. 17.
Rosalynn’s mother took in: Ibid., p. 19; B. Drummond Ayres, “The Importance of Being Rosalynn,” New York Times, June 3, 1979.
“so glamorous”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 22.
By now she was following: Kaufman, Rosalynn Carter, p. 8.
“That’s that”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 23.
The submarines of the era: Interview with Jimmy Carter; Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 66.
If she needed to stop: Kaufman, Rosalynn Carter, p. 12.
“We’re home!”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 36.
The first year Jimmy: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 65.
Jimmy was seen as: Interview with Philip J. Wise Jr.
COONS AND CARTERS: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 49.
The election was fifteen: Carter, Turning Point, p. 56.
Rosalynn was thrilled: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 50.
When one elderly couple: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 119.
Carter was leading by 70: Ibid., p. 120.
Joe Hurst sent Rosalynn: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 52.
“What do the constitutions”: Carter, Turning Point, p. 24.
“How long is”: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 144.
“Negroes and other agitators”: Ibid., p. 147.
every Kmart in the state: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 68.
The man responded by spitting: Ibid., p. 60.
Carter had dropped 22 pounds: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 98.
He kept a running tally: Jimmy Carter remarks at “The Civil Rights Summit,” LBJ Library, April 8, 2014.
“I want to know what you”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 73.
By the end of the campaign: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 264.
Those close to the president: Interviews with Gerald Rafshoon and Walter Mondale.
Rosalynn topped Mother Teresa: Kaufman, Rosalynn Carter, p. ix.
“And now look where we are!”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 314.
DAY FOUR
“See, this is what”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
According to Jordan’s: Jordan, Crisis, p. 47.
“Proceed with the American”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 249.
“I think we ought”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“You can go down”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 250.
Begin now had the important: William Quandt states that, from this moment, Begin’s position on settlements in Sinai became unyielding; but, as we have seen, he was already intransigent on this issue. Quandt, Camp David, p. 225.
“I will never personally”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 365.
“We are going to produce”: Ibid., p. 367.
“Mr. President, please do not”: Ibid., p. 366.
“You promised me”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 250.
Gefilte fish and challah: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 172.
He said that his father: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 269. Begin’s sister, Rachel, claims this story is not true.
liked to read Virgil: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 326.
She was known by: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein.
raising their three children: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 326.
Aliza strained to keep: Haber, Menachem Begin, p. 300.
She made her own clothes: Ibid., p. 301.
Even when her husband: Ibid., p. 302.
Such austerity was: Interview with Zev Chafets.
“I can’t afford that!”: Ibid.
“Jimmy is a fighter”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“Oh, he’ll be reelected”: Ibid. According to Gerald Rafshoon, Dayan never did make such a testimony, but Weizman traveled with the Carter campaign in its last week.
“He was a man”: Dayan, My Father, His Daughter, p. 249.
“almost insane daring”: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 109.
Ben-Gurion responded: Ibid., pp. 111–12.
In 1915, Moshe became: Dayan notes that another child, Gideon Baratz, was the first kibbutz child, but he had actually been delivered in another community. Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 27.
When Shmuel Dayan: Ibid., p. 30.
“From my boyhood days”: Ibid., p. 31.
“I could understand”: Ibid., pp. 37–38.
Several hundred Jews: Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 160.
The British authorities: Rashid Khalidi, “The Palestinians and 1948: The Underlying Causes of Failure,” in Rogan and Shlaim, The War for Palestine, p. 26.
“It became clear to me”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 41.
At the outbreak of : Ibid., pp. 66–71.
An Arab scout named Rashid: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 24.
“Who will hire a”: Ibid., p. 26.
“Gaza shall be forsaken”: Zephaniah 2:4–5.
In rabbinical literature: Sotah 9b.
“If I am shaved”: Judges 16:17.
“Those he killed”: Judges 16:30.
“The greatness of Samson”: Dayan, Living with the Bible, p. 129.
“I would leave early”: Ibid., p. 131.
“Thousands of youngsters”: Ibid., p. 165.
The official Israeli army: Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 272.
“We shoot from among”: Ibid., p. 275.
“an eye for an eye”: Ibid., p. 283.
His strategy was to provoke: Ibid., p. 286.
Fifty-eight civilians: Ibid., p. 287.
“Yesterday morning Roy was”: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, pp. 74–76; Dayan, Living with the Bible, pp. 165–66.
The phased departure of: Neff, Warriors at Suez, pp. 55–56.
“The Suez Canal was”: Turner, Suez 1956, p. 180.
Although Britain had: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 18.
The scheme was: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 202.
That would become: Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law, p. 233.
Finally, Israel would: Ibid., p. 215; Neff, Warriors at Suez, pp. 342–43; Sand, The Invention of the Land of Israel, p. 238.
Lloyd even proposed that: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 491.
“real act of war”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 219.
Dayan offered a plan: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 348.
Within an hour: The soldiers who killed the villagers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, but all were pardoned. The commander who ordered the slayings was convicted and made to pay a fine of 10 prutot, equivalent to a penny. The tally of victims killed varies between forty-seven and forty-nine, with the higher number being the more recent figure. Yoav Stern, “President Peres Apologizes for Kafr Qasem Massacre of 1956,” Haaretz, Dec. 21, 2007; Yoav Stern, “50 Years after Massacre, Kafr Qasem Wants Answers,” Haaretz, Oct. 29, 2006; Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 368. The Jerusalem District Court found that the orders were patently illegal and should have been disobeyed. Louise Fischer, personal communication.
About half of those: Shira Robinson, “Commemoration under Fire: Palestinian Responses to the 1956 Kafr Qasim Massacre,” in Makdisi and Silverstein, Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa, p. 105.
The war began when: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 236.
The Israelis finally took: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 381.
“In general, they fought”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 246.
“He had been abandoned”: Ibid., p. 248.
“These troops, abandoned by”: Quoted in Turner, Suez 1956, pp. 340–41.
The British and French assembled: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 313.
The troops came ashore: Ibid., p. 408.
which killed 2,700 Egyptians: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 111.
and left tens of thousands: Varble, The Suez Crisis 1956, p. 90.
“all contemporary forms”: Letter from Prime Minister Bulganin to President Eisenhower, Nov. 5, 1956, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d505.
It was President Dwight Eisenhower: Eban, An Autobiography, p. 212.
The Israelis were harder: Ibid., pp. 215–19.
“Egypt has lost its sovereignty”: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 13–14.
“If we agreed that”: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 434.
Britain had been motivated: Ibid., p. 438.
France’s colonial empire: Eban, An Autobiography, p. 233.
Within a few decades: Varble, The Suez Crisis 1956, p. 12.
“I owe the bomb to them”: Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 43.
Begin savored the company: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
he didn’t care to go: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 43.
Whenever he served as: Ibid., p. 100.
Sentimental scenes would: Interview with Zev Chafets.
At home, the Begins: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 24; Silver, Begin, p. 182. Zev Chafets told me that when the cast of Dallas came to Israel to promote a new season, Begin pulled Larry Hagman, the actor who played J. R. Ewing, aside and asked if he could confide who shot J.R.
So far, the only movie: Edward Walsh, “At the Summit’s End, Two Intractable Issues …” Washington Post, Sept. 20, 1978.
“He is intoxicated with”: Shmuel Katz quoted in Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 175.
“Begin, the King of Israel!”: Carter, The Blood of Abraham, p. 8.
“magic influence”: Interview with Aharon Barak.
“They say that Germany”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 169.
“In Zion Square”: Ben-Gurion, Israel, p. 400.
German money helped build: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 112.
“Much of the land”: Begin speech to Knesset, Nov. 7, 1956.
“This is the land”: Deuteronomy 34:4.
“Every place where you set foot”: Book of Joshua 1:3.
“Be strong and steadfast”: Book of Joshua 1:9.
“reproach of Egypt”: Book of Joshua 5:9.
“And it came to pass”: Book of Joshua 6:20–21.
“made it an heap”: Book of Joshua 8:28.
“all the souls that”: Book of Joshua 10:40.
“a very large part”: Book of Joshua 13:1.
“all the Lebanon”: Book of Joshua 13:5.
“I gave you a land”: Book of Joshua 24:13–14.
For Begin, however: Interview with Zev Chafets.
“Look at these Jews”: Quoted in Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 46.
Neither Jericho nor Ai: Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, p. 82.
The story was probably: Cline, From Eden to Exile, pp. 96–98.
The most likely explanation: Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, p. 118.
The first time that: Cline, From Eden to Exile, p. 116.
DAY FIVE
“Thus says the Lord”: Ezekiel 37:21–22.
“You must not be taken”: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 54.
But he was wrong: Richard B. Parker has an extensive analysis of this question in The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East. Nutting, in Nasser, makes the case for an Israeli trap to draw Egypt into war, pp. 397–98; while Oren, in Six Days of War, p. 54, simply concludes that the reasons are “obscure.” Lyndon Johnson, in The Vantage Point, p. 289, says that the Soviets manufactured the lie in order to pressure Egypt into supporting Syria.
Each time, the Soviets: Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, p. 8.
“There is nothing there”: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 64.
Still, Nasser felt: Nutting, Nasser, p. 408, suggests that Nasser was convinced he could “ride out the storm” if he offered no further provocation.
nearly half of the: Ibid., p. 383.
In addition, a third: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 93.
“If war comes”: Ibid.
“totally exterminate”: Sachar, A History of Israel, p. 633.
“Nasser was carried away”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 173.
The Israelis stockpiled: Yossi Alpher, personal communication.
“We must strike now”: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 87.
Dayan took immediate charge: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 130.
A message, which Dayan: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 169.
Dayan coolly had breakfast: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 131.
“The whole plan rested”: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, pp. 222–23.
one of its spies was: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 171.
The commander in chief: Ibid., pp. 171–74; Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 174.
“Well, they’ll be taught”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 174.
“Good morning!”: Ibid., p. 175.
“Quickly take possession”: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 185.
“Shall we say that”: Ibid., p. 226.
After Israel released: Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, p. 310.
Meantime, mobs attacked: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 217.
“I was dazed and”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, pp. 175–76.
“I know exactly what”: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, p. 244.
Within a few days: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 128.
“What a divine view!”: Lawrence Wright, “Forcing the End,” New Yorker, July 20, 1998.
Professor Weizmann’s papers: Weizman, On Eagles’ Wings, p. 246.
“Under no circumstances”: Oren, Six Days of War, p. 232.
“We must not wait”: Ibid., p. 242.
“May peace descend”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 16.
“We have returned to”: Ibid.
It would be at least: Chafets, Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men, p. 38.
Before Camp David: Interview with Harold H. Saunders.
suspicion on Carter’s part: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
The main idea that: Bruce Patton, personal communication.
“Governor, I’ve got a”: Interview with Jimmy Carter; “To Cool Arms Race in Ga.,” Gettysburg Times, Oct. 2, 1971; Randall H. Harber, “Georgia’s Arms Race,” UPI, Nov. 6, 1971.
“Necessary Elements of Agreement”: Jimmy Carter handwritten notes.
“The president was very frank”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 228.
it was also home: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 29.
Members of the Israeli: Aharon Barak told me, “I myself suggested many times to Sadat, ‘Take Gaza! Take Gaza!’ He said, ‘I don’t want Gaza.’ ”
but he didn’t want: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 293; Iris Berlatzky interview with Elyakim Rubinstein, Menachem Begin Archives.
“a concentration camp de luxe”: Silver, Begin, p. 191.
“It all reminded me”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 359.
Carter observed that Weizman: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“What makes things even gloomier”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 321–22.
“I get the feeling that”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 359.
“He heard you repeat”: Sabry, Al-Sadat, p. 451.
“There is no argument”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 362.
“He could hardly cross”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 323.
“Jerusalem has been put”: Ibid.
“Tohamy!”: Ibid., p. 196.
A figure from the ancien régime: Michael Lind, “Alboutros,” New Republic, June 28, 1993.
In 1910, a Muslim fanatic: Turner, Suez 1956, p. 41.
Given his talents: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 105.
“I felt strange”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 141.
Begin identified Brzezinski: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 363.
He was a political innovator: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
He explained to the press: Avner, The Prime Ministers, pp. 439–40.
“ocher Israel”: Sidney Zion and Uri Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks,” Part II, New York Times, Jan. 21, 1979.
“Poles apart!”: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 439.
“Don’t forget to tell”: Begin, White Nights, p. 19.
Observing the match: Silver, Begin, p. 192.
“Menachem just loves”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 246.
Begin did win: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai; Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 246. Brzezinski maintains the score was actually a 1–1 tie. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 259.
“He thought it would”: Interview with Meir Rosenne.
“Did we not agree”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 139.
DAY SIX
The Israeli team had: Sofer, Begin, p. 191.
Dayan diplomatically suggested: According to Louise Fischer, the draft was not meant as a serious proposal but a rebuttal of the Egyptian plan, if it were to be published. Louise Fischer, personal communication.
“and then we will go”: Interview with Aharon Barak. Louise Fischer believes this did not happen until September 12, but Barak has a clear memory of not being allowed to go to Gettysburg.
The point that Chaplain: “Chaplain Reed Is Now the Person Who Preaches to Carter the Most,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Feb. 24, 1979.
“You come against”: 1 Samuel 17:45.
“The Arabs come to us”: Dayan, Living with the Bible, pp. 185–87.
“long-forgotten brethren”: Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed, p. x.
In a Talmudic account: Masechet Sotah 42b, Babylonian Talmud. There is an intricate and confusing commentary in various rabbinical sources about the possible relationship of David’s and Goliath’s mothers, or else David’s mother and Goliath’s great-grandmother.
Sadat said that for: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“The audience began shouting”: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 24.
“certain nervous troubles”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 76.
“My relations with the”: Ibid., p. 77.
He later noted that: Ibid., p. 85.
“The bricks were sodden”: Ibid., p. 70.
a “university” to him: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 253.
When he was arrested: Begin, White Nights, p. 19. According to Begin’s biographer, the prison protocol says that he arrived with the Disraeli biography and a German-English dictionary. Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 31.
They passed the time: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“Citizen-Judge, we were”: Begin, White Nights, pp. 74–75.
“I can testify that”: Ibid., p. 48.
While in prison: Gordis, Menachem Begin, pp. 32–33.
“guilty of having been”: Begin, White Nights, p. 95.
“I never want to see”: Silver, Begin, p. 29.
He would later claim: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 64.
remarking how modern the armaments: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“Moshe, you’ve been”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 249.
“Are you the anti-Christ?”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 140.
Carter proudly added that: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 171.
“He seemed to know”: Ibid.
Carter’s great-grandfather: Littleberry Walker Carter survived the war only to be stabbed to death at the age of forty-two by a business partner in a quarrel over a merry-go-round they jointly owned. Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 10.
Maybe this was a turning point: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
“There are phrases in”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 372.
“seventeen pages of high”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 363.
“We would also ask that”: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 373–74.
“Gentlemen, the Americans”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 364.
“a beautiful number”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 375.
“This is not the time”: Ibid., pp. 374–76.
“Listen, we’re trying”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 255.
“What you want to do”: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 376–77.
“We will not accept”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 365.
On the eve of Camp David: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein conducted by Dr. Nina Sagie, May 5, 1994, Menachem Begin Heritage Center.
Before Dayan left: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 156.
directly into a tree: Interview with Aharon Barak; Carter, White House Diary, p. 231.
“What happened?”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 254.
“psycho”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 262.
Dayan’s cabinmates: Interview with Aharon Barak.
He pursued it with: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 45, pp. 162–63; also see Raz Kletter, “A Very General Archeologist—Moshe Dayan and Israeli Archeology,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4, article 5 (2003), for a catalog of Dayan’s ethical and legal violations.
“There is a festive air”: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, pp. 142–43.
“The only thing the”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 386.
not a single Jew lived: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 145.
“Of course”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“Sadat is smarter than”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“You don’t understand anything”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 340–41.
Sadat told the Jordanian: Ibid., p. 343; Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 253.
“We must offer al-Rayyis”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 142.
“Mr. Weizman!”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 261.
Dayan agreed to meet: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
He also learned that Begin: Interview with Aharon Barak.
DAY EIGHT
Unbeknownst to the Americans: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 254.
“This is going to end”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 367.
“I shall ask for a meeting”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 255.
“There’s no sense to”: Ibid.
“Moshe,” Weizman said: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 370.
History would show: Quandt, Camp David, p. 232.
Fifteen feet by twenty-two feet: Hans Mark, personal communication.
“In order to achieve peace”: Quandt, Camp David, Appendix F.
“It’s all right”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 385.
“Let me suggest that”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 255.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. President”: Ibid., p. 256.
“in communication”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 143.
“It could be really great”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 346.
An independent authority: Shay Fogelman, “What Israeli and U.S. Leaders of 1977 Hoped Would Be Jerusalem’s Fate,” Haaretz, Nov. 4, 2011.
The Americans and the Israelis: Interview with Elyakim Rubenstein.
Jerusalem was a symbol: Ibn ’Asakir, quoted in Sivan, Interpretations of Islam, p. 91.
He had always been attracted: Sadat, Safahat Majhula, p. 100.
as many as one million: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 25.
Some of Sadat’s fellow: Sadat, Revolt on the Nile, p. 93.
The king himself felt: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 25.
“This is the most serious talk”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 386.
“Seven hours!”: “Behind Camp David,” Menachem Begin speech to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Sept. 20, 1978.
“Mr. President, do we ask”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 257.
“the land of our forefathers”: “Behind Camp David,” Menachem Begin speech to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Sept. 20, 1978
The Saudis were also: Meir Rosenne, “Legal Aspects of Negotiations in the Peace Treaty with Egypt: Camp David (1978–1979),” in Moshe Fuksman Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 35.
“Never!” Begin cried: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 302.
He pointed out that: More than 60 percent of the Israeli public supported return of some of the occupied West Bank if it enabled peace with Egypt. A majority of Israelis did not share Begin’s “religious and ideological attachment to the whole of the territory.” National Intelligence Cable, Sept. 1, 1978.
Begin responded enigmatically: Carter, White House Diary, p. 235; Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 386–87.
DAY NINE
The West Bank would not: Eban, An Autobiography, p. 436.
The Arab leaders responded: Aburish, Nasser, p. 270.
“the first war in history”: Quoted in Jack L. Schwartzwald, “Did Golda Meir Cause the ‘Yom Kippur War’?” New Society, July 9, 2009.
In any case, Israel: Abba Eban made a number of claims that the Israelis had presented such an offer to the Americans, who passed it on to the Arabs, and that the Arabs peremptorily rejected the overture. There seems to be no evidence that the withdrawal proposal, in the form of a cabinet resolution of June 19, 1967, was anything more than a “foreign policy maneuver,” or that it was ever intended to go beyond a briefing to the Americans, or that it ever actually got passed to the Arabs. Avi Raz, “The Generous Peace Offer That Was Never Offered: The Israeli Cabinet Resolution of June 19, 1967,” Diplomatic History 37, no. 1 (2013): 85–108.
Although it is not often: Parker notes that, although the date the War of Attrition began is usually given as March 1969, the opening shots were actually fired the previous autumn. The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, p. 130.
War of Attrition: Ibid., p. 125.
Impatient with the state: Parker distinguishes three Israeli-American conceptual errors during this period: “The misjudgment of Egypt’s staying power, the misjudgment of Soviet seriousness, and the fascination with the use of force. The fault lay as much with the Americans as with the Israelis.” Ibid., p. 163.
“We shall not allow”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 122.
It was the first time: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 569.
That made the White House: Ibid., p. 585.
“I have decided to dispense”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 230.
In a single stroke he upended: Robert Satloff in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 151.
Moreover, the chastened: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 46.
“Why has he done”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 138.
“It was all, as I would”: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1299.
“I remember machine guns”: Shavit, My Promised Land, p. 143.
This was early in: Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, pp. 151 and 191–92.
By the end of the war: Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006124.
“useless eaters”: Ibid.
“When I took off my”: Shavit, My Promised Land, p. 145.
During cabinet deliberations: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 292.
While there, he studied: Interview with Farouk El-Baz.
Carter considered Baz: Interviews with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.
He had been head: “The Negotiators for Egypt,” Washington Post, Dec. 14, 1977.
Jewish girlfriend: Interview with Meir Rosenne.
Sadat had appointed Baz: Adel Hamouda, “Osama el-Baz: Malaff Shakhsi Jiddan!” [Osama el-Baz: A Very Personal Portfolio!], El Fagr, Sept. 24, 2013.
Baz became Mubarak’s: Reedy, Rihlat al-’umr, p. 329.
At this signal, Sadat: Interview with Farouk el-Baz.
Carter responded by saying: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 259.
“in all its parts”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 387.
“They have both also stated”: Ibid.
“My right eye will fall”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 229.
“Reaching agreement with you”: Sabry, Al-Sadat, p. 454.
“When he gets furious”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 260.
“I won’t give up”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 369.
“It is out of the question”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 261.
“You’re right,” Sadat replied: Sabry, Al-Sadat, pp. 454–55.
“I don’t know exactly why”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 260.
“Zbig, I am very much”: Nelson, The President Is at Camp David, p. 121.
DAY TEN
Sadat wondered whether: Jimmy Carter diary of Camp David.
“Come here,” he said: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 260.
Sadat loathed and feared: Interview with Aharon Barak.
“for Carter’s sake”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 144.
The Bar-Lev Line: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 224–25.
“The Egyptian Army today”: Reedy, Rihlat al-’umr, p. 248.
“There is no more Palestine”: “Waiting in the Wings,” Time, July 30, 1973.
Customs officers ripped out: Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, p. 247.
Nasser got tapes: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 13.
Sadat responded a few: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 219.
By that time, Israel: Kipnis, 1973, pp. 68–69.
She pressured Kissinger: Ibid., pp. 92 and 103.
“the stage of total confrontation”: “Arabs v. Israelis in a Suez Showdown,” Time, Oct. 29, 1973.
“Everything in this country”: Arnaud de Borchgrave, “The Battle Is Now Inevitable,” Newsweek, Apr. 9, 1973.
Menachem Begin warned: Iris Berlatzky interview with Yechiel Kadishai, Menachem Begin Heritage Center.
About a third of: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 12.
“I don’t rule out”: Kipnis, 1973, p. 47.
“a new Israel”: Ibid., p. 113.
All this confirmed: Ibid., p. 205.
Once the first wave: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 35.
The Russians had told them: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 291.
Replicas of the barricade: Herzog, The War of Atonement, pp. 35–36.
“havoc-making” angels: Quran 3:124–25.
There was one date: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 180–81.
“the lowest of the low”: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 51.
The night before the invasion: Gamasy, The October War, p. 210.
That same evening: Kipnis, 1973, p. 282.
Ashraf Marwan: There is a long and intriguing debate about whether Marwan was actually a double agent. Sadat awarded him a medal after the war, but the head of Mossad at the time defended him as the best agent Israel had ever had. Marwan died after falling off a balcony in London in 2007, in what may have been a homicide. Yigal Kipnis has an informative appendix in his book 1973: The Road to War about this controversy.
It would still take at least: Kipnis, 1973, p. 273.
And yet, on the day: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 157; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 461.
Each of the 750 boats: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 159; Gamasy, The October War, pp. 207–08.
Five infantry divisions: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 474.
“My God,” an Israeli: “The War of the Day of Judgment,” Time, Oct. 22, 1973.
Sadat had to remind: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 293.
The Arabs now had better: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 510.
“In the Golan Heights”: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, pp. 175–83.
Within twenty-four hours: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 181; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 495; Gamasy, The October War, pp. 216–17. Heikal gives a different figure for the loss of Israeli aircraft, which he puts at forty.
The entire population: Dayan, Story of My Life, pp. 495–96. Gamasy gives strikingly different figures for Egyptian losses in the first twenty-four hours: 5 planes, 20 tanks, 280 dead. Gamasy, The October War, pp. 216–17.
The Syrians sought to take: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 138–39. According to Kissinger, Israelis learned from captured Egyptian soldiers that Egypt did not even expect to reach the Sinai passes twenty to thirty miles from the canal. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 459.
On the morning of: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 193.
“hold on to the last bullet”: Ibid., p. 202.
Israeli losses by the end: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 492.
Dayan said he intended: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 196.
perhaps as many as twenty-five bombs: Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 179.
The Israelis may have decided: Ibid., p. 225. Israel has never publicly acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons. Neither Nixon nor Kissinger mentions the Israeli nuclear option in their accounts; however, Zbigniew Brzezinski affirmed it in his discussion with Carter in “Reflections on the Camp David Accords,” Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego, CA, March 9, 2012.
he recalls seeing a report: Interview with William Quandt; Elbridge Solby, Avner Cohen, William McCants, Bradley Morris, and William Rosenau, “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973: Deterrence and Signaling in Crisis,” CNA report, April 2013, p. 35. The authors conclude, “There was probably a change in the status of Israel’s nuclear delivery systems but the Americans did not interpret such activity as an attempt to coerce them” (p. 46).
“bleed a bit but not too much”: William Quandt, quoted in Elbridge Solby, Avner Cohen, William McCants, Bradley Morris, and William Rosenau, “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973: Deterrence and Signaling in Crisis,” CNA report, April 2013, p. 21 fn.
By October 11, Israel: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 504. Dayan himself later claimed, “There was no intention of capturing Damascus or even of bombing it.” Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 516. Nonetheless, he pressed to get the Syrian capital within artillery range of Israeli forces.
The Egyptians had ventured: Gamasy, The October War, p. 277. Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 195, claims the losses were 390 tanks.
“I am no novice at war”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 532.
He grew pale and gaunt: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 296.
“All those who died for our”: Ibid., p. 294.
Moreover, they embargoed: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 545.
Kissinger’s sympathetic eye: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 537.
Three thousand Israeli: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 131.
“MURDERER”: Chafets, Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men, p. 45.
The Israelis wanted revenge: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 573.
“You won’t get any violent”: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. xxv, “Arab-Israeli Crisis and War,” pp. 658–60.
Three Soviet airborne divisions: White, Breach of Faith, p. 263; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 543.
To block that scenario: Kalb and Kalb, Kissinger, pp. 563–64.
troops were actually loaded: Interview with Gary Chapman.
“a buffoon, an operatic figure”: Gail Sheehy, “The Riddle of Sadat,” Esquire, Jan. 30, 1979.
“It can be called”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 636.
“camels and date-palms”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 171.
Dayan’s pet project: “A City in Sinai,” Time, Jan. 22, 1973.
“What did you think”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 172.
“If anybody told you that”: Hermann Frederick Eilts in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 40.
“Convey this from me”: Carter, First Lady of Plains, p. 261; interview with Rosalynn Carter.
“Hi, Mohamed”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 352–53.
“You’re teasing”: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
Carter directed Vice President: Carter, First Lady of Plains, p. 261; Rosalynn Carter’s Camp David diary.
It was heartbreaking: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 390–91.
DAY ELEVEN
For the last twenty-four: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 262.
He watched George C. Scott: Interview with Walter Mondale.
He had once been so bright and promising: Zev Chafets, personal communication.
The experience had gradually turned: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 140.
Dayan, on the other hand: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
Begin, the Polish lawyer: Interview with Zev Chafets.
“my charming naughty boy”: “Ezer Weizman,” Telegraph, Apr. 26, 2005.
“FAMILY MAN AND DEMOCRAT”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 195.
“Such withdrawals could only”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 325.
“The West Bank”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 256.
Before the 1973 Yom Kippur War: Cohen, Culture and Conflict in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, p. 38.
“human material”: Chafets, Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men, p. 37.
“secure and recognized borders”: William Quandt, personal communication.
“there has to be a homeland”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 329.
All the other shirts: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 255.
“Tonight, the history”: Ibid., p. 258
“The Jews beat”: Interview with Zev Chafets.
manoach: Sidney Zion and Uri Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks,” Part II, New York Times, Jan. 21, 1979.
The first thought that came: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 271.
“Sadat is leaving”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 391.
He prayed: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“I understand you’re leaving”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 272.
“We are wasting our time”: Sabry, Al-Sadat, p. 453.
“What you could do”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
He promised that if Sadat: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 272.
Dayan had convinced him: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“The Egyptians have already agreed to”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 393.
“If you give me this”: Ibid., p. 393.
They argued about whether: Interview with Ahmed Abul-Gheit.
Tohamy was furious that: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 146.
“President Carter is a great man”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 352–57.
“Sadat agrees to something”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 146.
“Sherif, you bad boy!”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 357–58.
Perhaps he had in mind: Interview with Aharon Barak; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 276.
Mondale, whom the Israelis: Interview with Walter Mondale.
moreover, Sharon’s grandmother: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 130.
“I see no military objection”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 370.
“Evacuation of the settlements”: Ibid. Weizman’s chronology is somewhat jumbled; the meeting in which he made this reference seems to be on day nine, which is when Haber et al. place it. Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 260.
“Carter requests”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 370.
He made a final plea: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 176.
“You must agree to evacuate”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 371.
“We’re closer than we’ve”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 262.
Carter would then make: Quandt, Camp David, p. 240.
He insisted that they sing songs: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein.
Mohamed Kamel went to bed: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 362–63.
He appealed to Carter: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 394.
“legitimate rights of the Palestinian people”: Temko, To Win or to Die, pp. 228–30.
“Palestinian People”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 311.
“We are colonialists”: Rosalynn Carter’s personal Camp David diary.
“I want to have a talk”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 363–69.
“How does the president feel?”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, pp. 264–65.
Carter began by reviewing: Jimmy Carter’s personal Camp David diary.
Sadat insisted that he: Rosalynn Carter’s personal Camp David diary.
Dayan floated the notion: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 175.
“half a loaf”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 265.
The paragraph would state: Quandt, Camp David, p. 244.
“legitimate rights”: Ibid., p. 245.
nonaggression pact: Silver, Begin, p. 89.
and they ejected Arab: Neff, Warriors at Suez, p. 64.
Jerusalem itself was in the middle: Montefiore, Jerusalem, pp. 490–92.
Haganah, the official Jewish: Silver, Begin, p. 91.
“disorganized massacre”: Meir Pa’il, Haganah intelligence officer, quoted in Silver, Begin, p. 94.
“We had an agreement”: “Deir Yassin: Meir Pail’s Eyewitness Account,” http://web.archive.org/web/20080419084659/http://www.ariga.com/peacewatch/dy/dypail.htm. There are contrary reports that people from the neighboring village also took part in the massacre.
Haganah intelligence said: Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 208.
About two hundred: Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 208; Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 234; Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, p. 116.
Others—twenty to twenty-five men: Silver, Begin, p. 94. Silver quotes Yehoshua Gorodentchik, an Irgun officer: “We had prisoners, and before the retreat we decided to liquidate them. We also liquidated the wounded, as anyway we could not give them first aid. In one place, about eighty Arab prisoners were killed after some of them had opened fire and killed one of the people who came to give them first aid. Arabs who dressed up as Arab women were also found, and so they started to shoot the women also who did not hurry to the area where the prisoners were concentrated” (p. 91).
Among the attackers: Ibid., p. 207.
each party had an interest: Ibid., p. 209.
Ben-Gurion absolved: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 235.
“splendid act of conquest”: Silver, Begin, p. 88.
Later he would defend: Begin, The Revolt, p. xxi.
The Palestinians left behind: Benvenisti has many moving and specific accounts in Sacred Landscape.
By the end of the war: Montefiore, Jerusalem, pp. 493–94.
About four hundred Palestinian: Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 342.
Biblical names: Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, pp. 20–21. The designation of Mount Hor was so egregious that it was eventually renamed Mount Zin.
After sundown, Begin: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 270.
Carter listed the benefits: Jimmy Carter’s personal Camp David diary.
“Ultimatum!” Begin cried: Ibid.
“If agreement is reached”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 396.
“That’s what I can do”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 270.
“What is the ultimate importance”: Temko, To Win or to Die, pp. 228–29.
“By such verbal acrobatics”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 373.
In return for acknowledging: Quandt, Camp David, p. 246.
“After the signing”: Ibid., p. 247.
Begin later told the: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
Begin’s supposed moratorium: The quarrel about what Begin agreed to that night has never been resolved. Carter’s contemporaneous notes of the meeting reflected that Begin had agreed to the open-ended settlement freeze: “On the West Bank settlements, we finally worked out language that was satisfactory, that no new Israeli settlements would be established after the signing of this framework. And that the issue of additional settlements would be resolved by the parties during the negotiations. This would be accomplished with a letter which will be made public from Begin to me.” Vance’s account echoes Carter’s. Vance makes the point in his memoir: “Since we had been discussing only the comprehensive accord and the autonomy negotiations during the Saturday night session, it is difficult to understand how Begin could have so totally misinterpreted what the President was asking.” Vance, Hard Choices, p. 228. Carter told me, “Begin promised me and Sadat very clearly that he would stop all settlement building. When he got back to civilization, he began to lie. He began to say that he only meant they would stop settlement building during the time of negotiation.” At a twenty-fifth anniversary gathering of the principals who were at Camp David, however, Carter was challenged by Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who said that the disagreement was a misunderstanding, because Begin was a man of honor and would not go back on his word. Carter responded, “I think I agree. It was a misunderstanding. I don’t believe that Begin lied to me about it” (“Camp David 25th Anniversary Forum”). Aharon Barak was taking notes at the meeting. He told me, “When the dispute between them came up … Begin forgot that I was taking notes. So he was quarrelling with the president, so I called him and said, ‘Look, I have notes. And I think you were right.’ … So I went and took out the notes and read it to him, what he said, and then he asked me to send it to Carter, and I sent it to Carter. [Begin] didn’t agree to more than three months. That’s it.” The cable that Barak sent to Begin containing his notes supports what Begin said to Ambassador Lewis—that he would think about it and give Carter an answer the following day. Harold Saunders, then assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, testified that the settlement pause was tied to the period of time required for the Palestinians to set up a self-governing authority—three to six months, in his estimation. Future settlements could be discussed after that, but there would be no new settlements unless all parties agreed. “The subject was deliberately left open for that period of negotiations so that the parties involved could discuss this issue further,” he said. “Assessment of the 1978 Middle East Camp David Agreements,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Sept. 28, 1978, p. 27. Saunders’s view is obviously at odds with Carter’s, who believed that settlement building would be halted during the period of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which could be as long as five years. William Quandt, in private communication, explained that Begin was concerned that, if the negotiations with the Palestinians never actually began, Israel would be constrained in building new settlements. He remarks, “I think we should have tried to get the freeze for a defined number of months instead of tying it to the beginning of negotiations.”
DAY THIRTEEN
“I think we’ve gotten”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, pp. 265–66.
“Don’t smile”: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
“I got the settlement freeze”: Samuel Lewis, “The Camp David Peace Process,” in Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 56.
“I have a problem!”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 370.
He urged Sadat: Interview with Nabil el-Arabi.
“I heard you”: Interview with Ahmed Abul-Gheit.
“It was not possible”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 371.
“How many battalions”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 374.
The signing would be: Interview with Gerald Rafshoon.
“does not accept or recognize”: United Nations General Assembly, Fifth Emergency Special Session, July 14, 1967.
“regrets and deplores”: United Nations Security Council, July 1, 1969.
“substantial resettlement”: United Nations Security Council, Mar. 23, 1976.
“We can pack our bags”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 373.
If the Americans had planned: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 177.
Carter’s secretary, Susan Clough: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I brought”: Ibid.
“I wanted to be able”: Interview with Gerald Rafshoon.
a Jewish sage: “Ammon of Mainz” entry, vol. 1, Roth et al., eds., Encyclopaedia Judaica.
“I am not like the Rabbi”: Shlomo Slonim, “The Issue of Jerusalem at the Camp David Summit,” in Sha’al, ed. The Camp David Accords, pp. 65–66; Hasten, I Shall Not Die!, p. 212. Hasten has Begin telling Carter the anecdote in Washington, but perhaps he used it more than once. Yechiel Kadishai recalled it being employed at Camp David.
“The position of the United States”: Letter from President Jimmy Carter to Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat, September 22, 1978.
“I will accept”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 399.
“Should I come back?”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 266.
“Go back and get the right letter”: Samuel Lewis, “The Camp David Peace Process,” in Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 56.
“I want you to write”: Interview with Meir Rosenne.
He agreed to receive: Quandt, Camp David, p. 253.
If Begin had pledged: Alon Ben-Meir, “The Settlements: Israel’s Albatross,” Huffington Post, Nov. 14, 2013.
On the other hand: Interview with Aharon Barak.
Sadat was grim: Quandt, Camp David, p. 253.
“That’s it”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 270.
For Carter, the thirteen: Jimmy Carter personal Camp David diary.
“We’re coming home!”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 267.
“Children, we’ve reached”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 274.
“President Sadat told me”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 376.
That Sunday night: I’m grateful for an anonymous audience member from Gaithersburg, MD, who attended a preview of my play, Camp David, at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, for this interesting piece of information.
“Mama, we’ll go down”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 268.
empty chairs: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 378.
Even those who attended: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
“When we arrived at Camp David”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPtMafxVKeA.
“Dear Friend”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy9KIA_lByQ.
“It was the Jimmy Carter conference”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkIAnf_bzM.
“I have just signed”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 231.
EPILOGUE
“began to treat”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 384.
“As far as I know”: Ibid., p. 382.
He told an Israeli: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 233.
“Munich!”: “Summit at Camp David: ‘Touch and Go,’ ” http://www.archives.gov.il/ArchiveGov_Eng/Publications/ElectronicPirsum/CampDavid/CampDavidIntroductionB2.htm.
“The State of Israel could not”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 234.
At four in the morning: Hedrick Smith, “After Camp David Summit, a Valley of Hard Bargaining,” New York Times, Nov. 6, 1978.
“Begin wanted to keep”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 405.
“Sadat deserved it”: Carter, White House Diary, p. 256.
At that point, it had: Quandt, Camp David, p. 298.
In the middle of all this: Carter, White House Diary, p. 268.
The professionals in the State: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
“the largest and most”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 419.
“Perhaps we should move”: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 402.
“with apparent relish”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 421.
“the fate of a nation hangs”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, pp. 297.
absence of any sympathy: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 421.
“It was not only the Nazis”: Begin, The Revolt, p. 36.
he prayed that it would never: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, pp. 296–97.
After the Knesset meeting: Quandt, Camp David, p. 309.
Meantime, the press: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 303.
He urged Carter: William Quandt, personal communication; Louise Fischer, personal communication.
“sympathetically”: Vance, Hard Choices, p. 251.
“with our butts showing”: “Reflections on the Camp David Accords,” Carter conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego, CA, March 9, 2012.
“as a gesture for Mrs. Begin”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 287.
“You look tired”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 281.
“Kach oti eilehem”:“Bygone Days: Oh, for the Embraces of El Arish,” Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2008.
“Don’t be afraid”: Ibid.
Then he offered: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
During parliamentary elections: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, pp. 331–32.
he jailed three thousand: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 231–32. Some other sources give the number of arrests as 1,500, but Heikal was among those taken.
“Go, both of you”: Quran, 20:43–44.
If Moses, one of the: Ibrahim, I’adat al-I’tibar lil-Ra’is al-Sadat [The Vindication of President Sadat], pp. 161–62.
Arab nations imposed: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, pp. 416–17.
“cowards and dwarfs”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 280.
“He was saying things”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“It was as if”: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 441.
Sadat’s private secretary: John Bulloch and Nabila Mecalli, “Sadat Killed by Soldiers,” Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1400131/Sadat-killed-by-soldiers.html; Sadat, My Father and I, p. 175.
“I have killed the Pharaoh!”: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 50.
Osama el-Baz, who: Interview with Farouk el-Baz.
He had conspired: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 51.
Soldiers in battle dress: Frank J. Prial, “Heavy Security at Funeral Bars Egyptian Public,” New York Times, Oct. 11, 1981.
“I had an interesting life”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 318.
Ezer Weizman was also: Ibid., p. 328.
“No one here wants peace”: Ibid., p. 329.
“Do not think of those”: Quran 3:169.
“war of choice”: “The Lebanon War: Operation Peace for Galilee,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/History/Pages/Operation%20Peace%20for%20Galilee%20-%201982.aspx.
“forty years of peace”: Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 145.
The master plan: Yossi Alpher, personal communication.
Begin promised: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 200.
“Two targets in particular”: Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 159.
When the killers finally left: Fergal Keane, “Syrians Aid ‘Butcher of Beirut’ to Hide from Justice,” Daily Telegraph (London), June 17, 2001; Franklin Lamb, “Remembering Janet Lee Stevens, Martyr for the Palestinian Refugees,” Al-Ahram Weekly, May 6–12, 2010.
The Red Cross estimated: Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 163. Carter gives the figure as 1,400 killed. Carter, The Blood of Abraham, pp. 2–3.
He grew frail: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 415.
One more thing that: Ibid., p. 419.
“Today I will quit my job”: Ibid., pp. 419–20.
“Menachem, why did you?”: “Begin’s Legacy/Yehiel, It Ends Today,” Haaretz, Nov. 10, 2013.
From his window he: Hasten, I Shall Not Die!, p. 234.
“Okay, I’ll put you”: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai.
“How did you succeed”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 313.
“With Carter leading the”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 290.
His obsession with minutiae: James Fallows, “The Passionless Presidency,” Atlantic, May 1, 1979.
Vance believed that was about: Vance, Hard Choices, p. 229.
“Sadat has sold Jerusalem”: Jeremy Pressman, “Explaining the Carter Administration’s Israeli-Palestinian Solution,” Diplomatic History 37, no. 5 (2013). Without the leverage that Egypt might have provided, Arafat was unable to achieve a treaty he could accept at the Clinton Camp David conference in 2000, although it’s unclear if an Egyptian presence could have made a difference.
Arafat proceeded to boycott: Seth Anziska, personal communication.
Sadat’s ambivalence: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
Sadat was negotiating mainly: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 236.
“This will end in Begin’s”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 283.
No one in the Israeli: Interviews with Ziv Rubinovitz and Louise Fischer.
No one in the Israeli: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein.
Begin’s main goal: Iris Berlatzky interview with Elyakim Rubinstein, Menachem Begin Archives.
“The Arabs cannot isolate Egypt”: Kenneth W. Stein, in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 36.