The notes below have been consolidated, in most cases, to one per paragraph. English sources have been cited where possible; Arabic and Hebrew sources appear in English translation and are marked Hebrew or Arabic. Transliterations provided by publishers have been retained.
PART I. FORCING COMPROMISE
Laura M. James, “Military/Political Means/Ends: Egyptian Decision-Making in the War of Attrition,” The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the Superpowers 1967–73, Nigel J. Ashton, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 93.
1. THE ONLY LANGUAGE THEY UNDERSTAND
1. For the first Carter quote (“be harder on the Israelis”), see Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1985), pp. 277–78. For the second (“no strong feelings”), see Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), p. 282. For details of Carter’s trip to Israel and the West Bank, see Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 281; Jimmy Carter, The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), p. 25. For the final Carter quote (“profound impact”), see E. Stanly Godbold, Jr., Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924–1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 250–51.
2. Throughout the book I have used the phrase pre-1967 lines to refer to the 1949 armistice lines, which are also commonly called the “1967 borders” or the “pre-1967 borders.” On Carter as the first American president to call publicly for almost total Israeli withdrawal, see Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), p. 356. For more on Carter’s approach to the pre-1967 lines, see William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (Washington, DC, and Berkeley: Brookings Institution Press and University of California Press, 1993), pp. 260–61; Dennis Ross, Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), p. 151. For Carter’s declaration (“has to be a homeland”), stated at a March 16, 1977, town hall meeting in Clinton, Massachusetts, see “Editorial Note,” in Adam M. Howard, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–80, volume VIII: Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 2013), p. 164. Henceforth this volume will be cited as FRUS, VIII. For Carter’s use of Palestinian and PLO interchangeably, see Quandt, Peace Process, p. 259. For the Brookings paper, see “Toward Peace in the Middle East,” Brookings Institution Middle East Study Group, December 1975.
3. For Ford’s written assurance, see Quandt, Peace Process, pp. 169–70. For Carter’s PLO outreach, see William B. Quandt, Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2016), p. 104; FRUS, VIII, pp. 498–517; Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), p. 44. On the handshake, see FRUS, VIII, p. 189. For Ford’s September 1975 letter, see “Letter from President Ford to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin,” Document 234, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, volume XXVI, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1974–1976, 1976, pp. 838–40. For the Carter quote (“put as much pressure as we can”), see his diary entry on April 25, 1977: Carter, White House Diary, p. 44. On “showdown,” see Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 313; Carter, White House Diary, p. 168. Aides also described Carter as favoring a showdown. See Quandt, Camp David, p. 108; Brzezinski, Power and Principle (1983 hardcover edition), pp. 105–6.
4. Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 284.
5. On Carter spending more time on the Arab-Israeli conflict than any other, see Ross, Doomed to Succeed, p. 145. On the Carter-Rabin meeting and “fresh perspective,” see FRUS, VIII, pp. 618–40. On Israeli disappointment in the meeting, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 48; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, pp. 356–57. For Carter’s warning (“a blow to U.S. support for Israel”), see FRUS, VIII, p. 622.
6. For Carter quotes on Rabin, King Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, and Sadat, see Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 287, 292, 286, 291. Carter’s account appeared in his memoirs, published in 1983, two years after Sadat’s assassination. Yet the reverential tone can be found in Carter’s diary as well. For the quotes from the diary, see Carter, White House Diary, pp. 38–39. For Carter’s quote to his wife, see Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 291. For the final quote (“Arab leaders want to settle it”), see Carter, White House Diary, p. 44.
7. For the death of Begin’s parents and brother, see Daniel Gordis, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul (New York: Schocken Books, 2014), pp. 35–36. For the execution of nearly all of the Jews in Brest, see Christopher R. Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 118–42. On Begin’s opposition to the 1952 reparations agreement, see Anita Shapira, Israel: A History (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012), p. 264. For Begin on Jabotinsky, whom he called his “master,” see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 360. On Begin’s pioneering use of simultaneous bombings and improvised explosive devices, see Lawrence Wright, Thirteen Days in September: The Dramatic Story of the Struggle for Peace (New York: Vintage, 2015), p. 106. On IRA use of The Revolt, see J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA (London: Transaction Publishers, 1997), p. 164; Wright, Thirteen Days, p. 106. On admiration for The Revolt by Nelson Mandela and the ANC, see Nelson Mandela, Conversations with Myself (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), pp. 106–7. On the al-Qaeda training camp and Osama bin Laden, see Wright, Thirteen Days, pp. 82, 303. On the King David Hotel bombing, in which ninety-one people were killed, as well as one of the Irgun attackers, see Bruce Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917–1947 (New York: Vintage, 2016), p. 300. Of the ninety-one victims, there were thirteen soldiers, three policemen, and twenty-one first-rank government officials. See Thurston Clarke, By Blood & Fire: July 22, 1946: The Attack on the King David Hotel (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981); Benny Morris, 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 35. On Haganah involvement in and Irgun blame for the Deir Yassin killings and the King David Hotel bombing, see Gordis, Menachem Begin, pp. 70–75.
8. On Begin’s opposition to partition in 1937 and 1947, see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 360. For the Irgun emblem, see Bernard Reich and David H. Goldberg, Historical Dictionary of Israel (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), p. 261. For the Herut platform, see Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 33. For the Likud platform, see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 360.
9. For the American plan, known as the Second Rogers Plan, which was initiated on June 19, 1970, and agreed to by the Israeli government on July 31, 1970, see State of Israel, Knesset, “Rogers Plan,” accessed August 2, 2016; Richard Nixon, “Second Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy,” Feburary 25, 1971, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3324&st=policy&st1=. For Begin’s remarks on “Judea and Samaria” and annexation, see Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 164. For Begin’s quote (“excuse my emotions”), see FRUS, VIII, p. 343. On Begin’s view that if Jews had no right to the West Bank they had no right to Tel Aviv, see Quandt, Camp David, pp. 272, 67. For the Begin quote (“the Eastern part is the real Jerusalem”), see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–80, volume IX: Arab-Israeli Dispute, August 1978–December 1980 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2014), p. 1186. The two figures—55 percent in the 1947 partition plan and conquest of an additional 23 percent—come from two of Israel’s leading mapping experts, Dan Rothem and Shaul Arieli. Some texts use slightly different numbers, putting the allotment to the Jewish state in the 1947 partition plan at 56 percent, with a conquest of an additional 22 percent during the war. Part of the discrepancy stems from the existence in the partition plan of a separate UN-controlled regime for Jerusalem and Bethlehem, taking up less than 1 percent of Mandatory Palestine and under the sovereignty of neither the Jewish nor the Arab state. Personal correspondence, Dan Rothem, March 28, 2016.
10. For background on Ezer Weizman, see Wright, Thirteen Days, pp. 54–55; Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 168. For Sharon’s role in the Qibya massacre, see Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 258–59. On Dayan’s goal to prevent the West Bank from continuing to have an Arab majority, see Wright, Thirteen Days, p. 181. On Dayan’s preference for Sharm el-Sheikh without peace, see Ezer Weizman, The Battle for Peace (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p. 130. For Begin’s quote (“The Arabs would not dare go to war”), see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 361.
11. On the similarities and differences between Labor and Likud positions on the Palestinian issue in the late 1970s, see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, pp. 330–40, 354–62; Quandt, Camp David, pp. 2, 46–51. On Labor’s positions in August 1977, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 454–58. Labor too was opposed to Palestinian self-determination, relinquishment of East Jerusalem, acceptance of the pre-1967 lines with only minor modifications, an end to Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and recognition of the PLO.
12. Quandt, Camp David, p. 69.
13. All of the above quotes from Goldmann appear in FRUS, VIII, pp. 732, 731.
14. For Walter Mondale’s speech, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 73. For the public campaign by US diplomats against Begin’s interpretation of UN Resolution 242, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 75. For the drafting of principles that were taken to Arab leaders, see Quandt, Camp David, pp. 76–89; FRUS, VIII, pp. 369–472.
15. For Arafat’s message, see “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter,” in FRUS, VIII, p. 335. For Carter’s message to Vance, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 89. For Begin’s pleas and Carter’s refusal, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 87.
16. For the Vance telegram, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 412–14. For Carter’s statement on US-PLO dialogue, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 93. For Vance dropping US insistence on the PLO changing its charter and Begin’s comparison of US actions to appeasement of Hitler, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 94. For Begin’s quote (“excluded forever”) and his reading aloud from the PLO charter (in particular “those articles which negated Israel’s right to exist and which called for the expulsion of Israelis who arrived after 1917”), see FRUS, VIII, p. 432.
17. For Vance’s request for draft peace treaties, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 382–84, 423–24. For Vance’s more detailed ideas on Palestinian self-determination, including a transitional period of self-rule, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 109; FRUS, VIII, pp. 380, 384–88, 477–78. For State Department announcements in September, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 105; FRUS, VIII, p. 512. For US backchannel outreach to the PLO through Bolling, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 498–520. Bolling was president of Earlham College, in Indiana, from 1958 to 1973.
18. For Dayan’s quote (“most unpleasant”), see Moshe Dayan, Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations (New York: Knopf, 1981), p. 59. For Qaddumi’s quote as well as Arafat’s welcome of the US statement and acceptance of 242 with modifications, see Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 421–22. In September 1977, Arafat conveyed to Carter through Landrum Bolling that he was willing to accept Security Council Resolution 242 if the United States would declare its support for a Palestinian state, which Carter was not prepared to do. FRUS, VIII, pp. 506, 503; Quandt, Camp David, p. 101. Later that month, Arafat was asked by Barbara Walters of ABC Television whether he would accept Resolution 242 if it were supplemented by a new UN Security Council resolution declaring that Palestinians were entitled to a national homeland or entity. The New York Times reported: “Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, says he would accept a United Nations Security Council Resolution acknowledging the right of Israel to exist if it were supplemented by a resolution specifying recognition of the right of the Palestinians to an independent homeland.” David Binder, “Arafat Hints Easing of P.L.O. Stand,” The New York Times, September 25, 1977; Quandt, Camp David p. 106.
19. On settlement building, steps toward annexation, and the stern warning to Begin, see “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel”: “The Israeli Government announced on August 15 [1977] that it would extend services to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, raising fears that it was planning to annex the area, and on August 17 announced the construction of three new settlements on the West Bank.” FRUS, VIII, p. 480. On “showdown,” see Quandt, Camp David, p. 108; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 105–6. On US drafting of model peace treaties, including one involving a transitional regime in the West Bank, see Quandt, Camp David, pp. 101–102.
20. On Moshe Dayan’s August 22, 1977, meeting in London with Jordan’s King Hussein, see Shlaim, The Iron Wall, pp. 364–65; Quandt, Camp David, p. 112.
21. On Dayan’s meeting with Anwar Sadat’s envoy, see Dayan, Breakthrough, pp. 38–54; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, pp. 365–66; Sidney Zion and Uri Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks,” The New York Times Magazine, January 21, 1979; Quandt, Camp David, pp. 112–14. For Dayan’s quote (“one overriding principle”), see Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 45. For Tuhami and Sadat’s rejection of an Egyptian-Israeli peace that excluded the Palestinian issue, see Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 47.
22. For Dayan’s “wipe out” comment and quotes from Lewis, see FRUS, VIII, p. 418. For Israel’s arming of Lebanese Christians, see comments by Ezer Weizman: FRUS, VIII p. 436. For Lewis’s telegram, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 415–16. Lewis’s warning was then echoed by an Egyptian official, who told the United States: “Israel might be planning to strike at the PLO in Lebanon to ensure that the moderate tendency in the PLO would be put on the defensive.” Quandt, Camp David, p. 95.
23. For Carter warning Begin of “gravest consequences,” see Quandt, Camp David, p. 103. For Begin’s violation of the 1976 Arms Export Control Act and US-Israeli defense assistance agreements, see FRUS, VIII, p. 565. For US intelligence confirmation that Israeli statements were untrue, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 106.
24. For Carter’s letter of warning, see FRUS, VIII, p. 566. For Carter’s threat that US military assistance “will have to be terminated,” see “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel,” FRUS, VIII, pp. 564–66. For Begin’s promise to withdraw and his raised glass of whiskey, see FRUS, VIII, pp. 566–70; Quandt, Camp David, p. 107.
25. For the US-Soviet joint statement, see Quandt, Camp David, p. 122. For the Sadat quote (“brilliant maneuver”), see Quandt, Peace Process, p. 268. For Israel’s announcement (“harden Arab demands”), see Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. and Soviet Set Mutual Guidelines for Mideast Peace,” The New York Times, October 2, 1977. For The New York Times on “growing strain,” see “Israel Reacts to Statement,” The New York Times, October 2, 1977, p. 16.