CHAPTER TWELVE

Camp David and the War in Lebanon

On 27 October 1973, at Kilometre 101 on the road from Cairo to Suez, an Egyptian and an Israeli officer met under the auspices of the newly arrived United Nations Emergency Force, inaugurating contacts that culminated at Camp David. Appointed Secretary of State on 22 September, Kissinger met Sadat at the Tahra Palace in a Cairo suburb on 7 November and decided that the Egyptian President had staked his policy on the American connection: Russian influence in the Middle East could be lessened; if the United States could balance Arab impatience and Israel’s fears there was a prospect of ‘a peace of moderation’.¹

Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy

Kissinger ensured an American dominance over the settlement that ended the October War. From Egypt he travelled to Israel, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Russia, and he helped to secure the Egyptian–Israeli agreement over the cessation of hostilities and the interim disposition of forces signed at Kilometre 101 on 11 November. He also made the preliminary plans for the international conference, called by the Secretary General of the United Nations but co-chaired by the United States and Russia, which met in Geneva on 21–22 December. Boycotted by Syria, the conference was attended by Israel, Egypt and Jordan. It left the substantive negotiations to the belligerents, and in these talks the United States was often the intermediary if not the initiator. The first agreement, signed on 18 January 1974, while separating Egyptian and Israeli forces, allowed limited Egyptian troops on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, a disengagement zone or no-man’s-land supervised by the United Nations in the western parts of Sinai, and limited Israeli forces west of the strategic Giddi and Mitla passes. Sadat had assured Kissinger in December that he would have the Arab oil embargo lifted, and in February 1974 Kissinger linked the calling off of the embargo with the negotiations to secure the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights. The Egyptian President said that the agreement of 18 January showed that the United States had done something for the Arabs and that it deserved a reward. By 18 March, with the exception of four countries, the embargo was withdrawn, and Kissinger undertook his Damascus shuttle. Late in April Israeli and Syrian forces fought for tactical ground on Mount Hermon in the Golan. In an atmosphere of rancour Syrian and Israeli military representatives met at Geneva in May to discuss a field truce. Without even the ritual handshake an agreement was signed on 31 May 1974 providing for a separation of forces in the Golan and supervision and inspection by a third party, the United Nations Disengagement and Observer Force. Kissinger managed to convince the Israelis of Asad’s assurances that the Golan would not become guerrilla country.²

If Washington was able to help initiate an agreement between radical Syria and Israel, peace talks with other Arab states seemed possible. This new friendship between the United States and the Arabs was consolidated by the state visit of President Nixon, haunted by Watergate, to Egypt in June 1974, followed by stops in Jedda and Damascus. Nixon also made the first visit by an American president to Israel and reassured that country. By the middle of the year it was evident that Kissinger’s diplomacy had succeeded in its objective of largely ousting Russia from the Middle East.³

The evident dependence of the world on Arab oil weakened Israel’s international position. As well as destroying the myth of Israeli invincibility, the October War eroded the country’s self-confidence. Domestically Golda Meir and her defence minister, Dayan, were blamed for provoking the war by pursuing expansionist policies, and even worse, for being unprepared when it came. A delayed election on 31 December 1973 narrowly returned a Labour alignment, with the right-wing Likud opposition gaining eight seats. However, when the commission investigating responsibility for the Israeli government’s blunder blamed career officers and refused to speculate on Dayan’s personal responsibility, the Israeli public was outraged that the man who said he was the architect of Israel’s military supremacy appeared to be acquitted. Likud asked for a special session of the Knesset. Tensions within the Labour alignment were such that rather than risk a vote of confidence Meir resigned in April 1974. The succession dispute was between Shimon Peres, the then Minister of Information and the candidate of the Rafi wing of the party which politically stood on the right, and General Yitzhak Rabin, who had been Chief of Staff at the time of the June 1967 War and had served as ambassador in Washington. Labour’s central committee chose Rabin. Peres became Defence Minister and Yigal Allon Foreign Minister. For the first time in Israel’s history the Prime Minister and key members of the Cabinet were not products of Mapai, the centrist faction of the Labour movement.⁴

The stability of the disengagement agreements that Kissinger had helped to negotiate, however, was threatened by the unresolved problem of the future of the Palestinians. At a meeting of Arab governments in Algiers in November 1973 it was suggested that the PLO should be recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. King Hussein of Jordan refused to accept this draft, and together with Egypt tried to develop a different formula for Palestinian representation. But the Palestinians achieved international recognition. On 21 September 1974 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted to include the Palestine question on its agenda; only Israel, the United States, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic opposed the decision. On 14 October the PLO was invited to take part in the debate, and a month later the PLO’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, outlined a plan for a democratic secular state in Palestine in which Jews and Arabs could co-exist on terms of equality. Against this background, at the end of October, Hussein had to defer to the consensus at a meeting of Arab heads of state in Rabat that only the PLO had the right to speak for the Palestinians at any future Middle East peace talks. Arafat spoke of a unitary Palestine which implied the elimination of Israel. In this he was supported by Iraq and Libya. However, late in 1974 it seemed that a majority within the PLO and some Arab governments including Egypt were willing to trade recognition of Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it had occupied during the June 1967 War, including Arab Jerusalem, and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank.⁵

Kissinger’s diplomacy had raised Arab expectations that the United States could promote a settlement based on an Israeli withdrawal. After the October War, however, Israel became the largest recipient of American aid: in 1972 American aid to Israel totalled $350m; in 1974 it was $2,630m; from the mid-1970s it was around $2bn. Military supplies accounted for around 70 per cent.⁶ There was an impasse: Rabin refused to have any dealings with the PLO, which he considered a body of terrorists. In his election campaign Rabin had tried to win the support of ‘doves’ in Israel with his statement that it would not be a hardship ‘if Israelis had to get a visa to visit Rachel’s Tomb’ in the occupied territories. This attitude, however, was undermined by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command’s attack in April 1974 on an apartment block in the town of Qiryat Shmona in the north of Israel, in which the three terrorists and eighteen Israelis, eight of whom were children, died. According to the Israelis the terrorists just killed. The Popular Front version was that they seized hostages, demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners, and when Israeli soldiers stormed the building, the terrorists blew it up. Still more serious was the massacre in May at the village of Ma’alot which followed the taking of ninety Israeli school cadets as hostage by the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in an attempt to secure the release of twenty-six prisoners, one for each year of Israel’s existence. When the school was stormed, twenty children and three terrorists died, and seventy people were wounded.⁷ These outrages also helped to provide a context for the increase in American arms.

Following Arafat’s appearance at the United Nations, Palestinians on the West Bank demonstrated in favour of the PLO. Many were arrested, and Israel deported some.

Ford’s plans for a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement

The new American President, Gerald Ford, initially supported Kissinger’s ‘step by step’ diplomacy, but faced with Israeli intransigence he began to think of a comprehensive peace settlement including Palestine. In March 1975 the Israelis stalled over the withdrawal from the Mitla and Giddi passes in the Sinai. Ford warned Rabin that he had given instructions for a reassessment of United States policy in the Middle East: between March and September the United States refused to make arms agreements with Israel. Initially Ford resisted pressure from the Zionist lobby, now known as the ‘pro-Israeli lobby’, led by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).⁸ The American President met Sadat in Salzburg in June, and decided to put a suggestion from the Egyptian leader – that there be a buffer zone around the Giddi and Mitla passes, equipped with an early-warning station staffed by American non-military personnel – to the Israelis as an American plan. Two gestures from the Arabs helped: in May Syria agreed to renew the mandate of the United Nations force in the Golan; in June Egypt reopened the Suez Canal. In August Kissinger returned to the Middle East. His bargaining produced a second disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt: the Israeli army would withdraw just east of the Giddi and Mitla passes while the passes would constitute a buffer zone as Sadat had initially proposed; Egypt would regain control of the Sinai next to the Gulf of Suez in which the Abu Rudeis and Ras al-udr oil fields were located. But there was also a confidential American–Israeli ‘memorandum of understanding’ which provided for increased American aid including the delivery of vast quantities of new sophisticated weapons, compensation for Israel’s oil losses, and a pledge not to initiate moves in the Middle East without prior consultation with Israel. Washington also agreed to insist that negotiations between Israel and the Arab countries should be bilateral and not multilateral, and undertook not to recognize the PLO or to negotiate with it without Israeli consent, and until it had formally recognized Israel’s right to exist. Between the October War and June 1977 the Israeli military forces doubled in strength, and Israel’s airforce with 574 combat aircraft became the third strongest in the world.⁹

In October 1975 Sadat visited Washington and confirmed the American connection. Egypt abrogated its treaty of friendship with Russia in March 1976, and Syria took over as leader of the Arab world. Asad secured the promise of arms from Moscow to counter American deliveries to Israel, restored close relations with Jordan, and obtained the agreement of the Security Council to a special debate on Palestine. In November 1975 the General Assembly established a committee to see how the Palestinian right to self-determination and national independence could be implemented. It also invited the PLO to take part in United Nations’ debates on the Middle East and described Zionism as ‘a form of racism and racial discrimination’. A Security Council resolution of January 1976, affirming the right of the Palestinians to establish a state, was vetoed by the Americans. In March, however, the American delegate condemned the establishment by Israel of ‘illegal’ settlements in Arab Jerusalem and other occupied areas. Rioting spread from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel itself, and in April 1976 municipal elections organized by the Israelis on the West Bank showed widespread support for the PLO.¹⁰

The Lebanese Civil War

At this time it was also evident that the Palestinian refugee problem had undermined the confessional system in the Lebanon. That legacy of French colonial administration based on a census of 1932 which showed the ratio of Christians to Muslims of 6:5 provided for a Maronite Christian President, a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister and a Shiite speaker. A Christian Phalange census of 1982 showed that the Christian proportion had fallen to 30 per cent. The Palestinians, who initially arrived in 1948, swelled considerably in 1967, and again in 1970 with their expulsion from Jordan. In 1970 they numbered 400,000 out of a population of 3 million. Many of the Palestinians settled south of the Litani river where most of the inhabitants were Shiites. The Shiites had to accept PLO fighters, and Israeli reprisals. In 1968 the Lebanese government tried to restore its authority in this south border region. This aroused Syrian opposition, led to Nasser’s intervention in October 1969 and a settlement which in effect acknowledged that the Beirut government had lost control in the south of Lebanon. In April 1975 Palestinian gunmen shot the bodyguard of the Phalangist leader, Pierre Gemayel. Phalangist gunmen retaliated by killing a bus full of Palestinians. Syria, worried about the possibility of Israeli military intervention in southern Lebanon, sent troops into Lebanon in May 1976. Asad had to face the PLO and virtual isolation in the Arab world. In October 1976 leaders of Egypt, Syria, the Lebanon and the PLO agreed to a ceasefire and the formation of an Arab peacekeeping force. Divisions within the Arab world at the time of the Lebanese civil war, and American preoccupation with the presidential election campaign, gave the Israelis the opportunity to establish further settlements on the West Bank, in the Golan Heights and in Sinai.¹¹ Unrest on the West Bank continued throughout 1976 with Palestinian schoolchildren participating in demonstrations in Nablus, Ramallah and Arab Jerusalem. In October Jews and Arabs rioted in Hebron over prayer rights, and in December there was a hunger strike by Arabs detained in an Israeli prison at Ashkelon. On 15 February 1977, following a report by the United Nations Special Committee for the Investigation of Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories, the United Nations Human Rights Commission asked Israel to adhere to the Geneva Convention in its treatment of civilians.¹²

Carter, a ‘homeland’ for the Palestinians, and the rise of ‘political messianism’ in Israel

In his presidential campaign Jimmy Carter supported the United States’ commitment to the security of Israel. A Southern Baptist, he thought that a homeland for the Jews was ordained by God, and also saw Israel as a strategic asset that could thwart Russian expansion in the area. Both the President and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, thought that depriving the Palestinians of rights was contrary to moral and ethical principles. The National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, influenced Carter with his view formed during a visit to Israel that it was futile to seek security through the acquisition of territory: Israel could never get enough territory to compensate for Arab hostility. On 16 March 1977 at a meeting in Clinton, Massachusetts, Carter advocated a ‘homeland’ for the Palestinians, and in a speech on 26 May he said that the Palestinians should be compensated for the losses they had suffered.¹³

Under pressure from the emerging American policy, disturbances on the West Bank, and economic difficulties, Rabin’s government resigned in December 1976. While achieving increased immigration into Israel, particularly from Russia, and foiling the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s demands for the release of imprisoned Palestinians by the hijacking of an Air France plane in June 1976, with the raid on Entebbe airport by Israeli paratroopers, the apparent successes of Rabin’s government were undermined by the divisions in the Labour coalition over the illegal settlements established on the West Bank by a group known as the Gush Emunim (Community of Believers or Bloc of the Faithful).

By this time there was a close link in Israeli society between the policies of annexation and religion. This had been described as ‘political messian-ism’. To some extent it had its origins in the Agudat Israel party, but its first significant manifestation was in 1968 when settlers led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger demanded permission to settle in Hebron. This led to Yigal Allon’s plan to build on lands confiscated from Hebron Arabs, and became part of Allon’s ploy to weaken the position of Moshe Dayan. In 1975 Gush Emunim decided on the policy of settlements on all of the West Bank leading to the annexation of the area: the tactic was to establish the settlements and then to use divisions among the Labour leaders to secure concessions. Shimon Peres, Gush Emunim’s ally, allowed himself to be exploited to undermine the authority of Rabin.¹⁴

Members of Labour’s coalition partner, the National Religious Party which called for the absorption of the West Bank into greater Israel, abstained in a vote of no confidence in the Knesset and it was agreed that Rabin should stay on as Prime Minister of a caretaker government until elections were held in May 1977. Scandals over breaches of currency regulations led to Rabin’s replacement by Peres as a candidate for the premiership. In the election campaign Labour speakers referred to the history of terrorist activities of Menachem Begin, the leader of the Likud. There was a considerable shift away from the left. Many Jews of oriental, North African and Middle Eastern backgrounds, known as ‘Sephardic’, changed their allegiance, and the right wing parties had 46 per cent of their vote. Breeding faster than the Ashkenazic or European Jews, the Sephardic Jews were rapidly becoming the majority population, but their standard of living did not approach that of the Ashkenazic Jews. The Sephardic Jews, particularly those from North Africa, who arrived after the end of the first Arab–Israeli War often found that they were harshly treated and from the outset their communities were broken up and they were kept in inferior service jobs.¹⁵ The inflation of the 1970s exacerbated the economic and social gulf between the two communities. The standard of living of Palestinians in the occupied territories had increased under Israeli rule, and as they became commuter labourers in Israel, they aroused fear and resentment in the Sephardic community. Begin appealed to the Sephardic community with his criticisms of the European Jews’ indifference to the oriental workers.

In the election Likud and the National Religious Party increased their number of seats and Begin led a right-wing administration committed to maintaining control of the West Bank. Influenced by the founder of Revisionist Zionism, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and his concept for a Jewish state in the whole of the historic land of Israel, Begin seemed to challenge Carter’s schemes for a settlement of the Arab–Israeli conflict.¹⁶

Carter secured the support of the European allies: on 29 June 1977 the leaders of the European Economic Community endorsed the creation of a homeland for the Palestinians. When Begin met Carter in Washington in July the President outlined a programme which included the creation of a Palestinian entity as distinct from an independent nation. On a visit to the Middle East in August, Vance, the Secretary of State, learnt that the Begin government refused to consider the idea of a Palestinian homeland or to talk to the PLO. Israel’s policies of extending its social services to Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the authorization of three new settlements in the occupied territories, complicated the American initiative. In September, Dayan, the Israeli Foreign Minister, while in Washington, presented proposals for a settlement entailing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. That month Israel also sent troops into southern Lebanon to support the Maronites. The Israelis had worked with Saad Haddad, a Lebanese army officer and a Greek Catholic, to help him to oust the Palestinians and take over Shiite villages on Israel’s northern border. The Americans responded by putting pressure on Israel to accept Palestinian representation in a joint Arab delegation to a resumed Geneva peace conference which had previously been jointly chaired by Russia and the United States at its only meeting in December 1973. On 1 October 1977 Washington and Moscow, in a joint statement, called for a Middle East settlement ensuring the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Israel stated its intention that month to establish six further Jewish settlements on the West Bank. On 9 November, in response to a rocket attack by Palestinian terrorists on a settlement in the north of Israel, the Israeli airforce bombed refugee camps in the south of Lebanon. As a result of pressure from the Zionist lobby, Washington agreed to an American–Israeli statement that the Geneva conference should be based on United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338. ¹⁷

Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem

It was against this background that preparations had been made for direct contacts between Egypt and Israel. Begin with his ideological views of the historic Israel was prepared to trade Sinai for the West Bank or what he called ‘Judea and Samaria’. He put out feelers to Sadat through the good offices of President Nicolae Ceausescu of Rumania. Sadat was moved by Israeli intelligence information about a Libyan plot against his life passed on through King Hassan of Morocco. In September, in Morocco, Dayan had talks with an Egyptian intermediary. On 30 October Sadat went to Rumania and was heartened by Ceausescu’s conviction that Begin wanted a solution. Sadat began to think of a dramatic gesture that would show Begin that the Arabs were prepared to take the proposed Geneva conference seriously: Arab leaders should speak at the Knesset in Jerusalem. But after a talk with Saudi Arabia’s new king, Khalid, and Jordan’s Hussein, Sadat sensed that he would have to go on his own. A few hours after the Israeli attacks in Lebanon, on 9 November, Sadat told the Egyptian parliament that he was prepared to go to the Knesset itself to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel. Through American intermediaries Begin pursued the idea. Sadat faced the disapproval of his own ministers: the Foreign Minister, Ismail Fahmy, and the acting successor, Mahmoud Riad, both resigned. Despite increasing Arab hostility Sadat flew to Jerusalem on 19 November 1977 and offered Israel recognition and permanent peace based on agreements that would lead to the return of occupied Arab territories, including Arab Jerusalem, recognition of Palestinian statehood, and secure boundaries subject to international guarantees.¹⁸

At a meeting at Ismailia on 25 December Begin offered Sadat a limited form of ‘self-rule’ for the population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. President Carter had an hour and a half’s conversation with Sadat at Aswan on 4 January 1978. The two statesmen adopted a formula based on the establishment of normal peace in the area, secure borders for Israel and that country’s withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, and acknowledged that ‘the solution must recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and enable the Palestinians to participate in the determination of their own future’. Carter’s thinking was close to that of Sadat and a long way from that of Begin. On 5 January the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva criticized the Israeli settlements in Sinai as illegal. Egyptian talks with Israel broke down over this issue and many American politicians criticized Begin’s rigid policies on the settlements. Begin was invited to Washington but events in the Lebanon in March delayed his departure.

The Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1978

On 11 March 1978 the PLO launched a series of raids from the south of Lebanon by land and sea to attack near Tel Aviv leaving 37 dead and 76 wounded Israeli civilians. The Israeli Defence Forces on 14 March mounted a massive operation across the northern frontier and established themselves six miles into Lebanese territory. When the United States introduced a resolution in the Security Council which called for the withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Force and the establishment of an interim United Nations peacekeeping force, the Israelis advanced further and at the ceasefire on 20 March occupied the area as far as the Litani River apart from Tyre. One thousand civilians were killed and over 200,000 became refugees. Carter was discouraged by his meeting with Begin on 20 March. The Israelis withdrew from only part of southern Lebanon and insisted that some of their forces remained until the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon could prevent Palestinian terrorist attacks across into northern Israel. Tyre remained in Palestinian control.¹⁹

The Carter administration was under considerable pressure from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee which led the pro-Israel lobby. But while Carter gave Begin assurances about the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security in May 1978, the American Senate, only a few weeks later, agreed to sell F-15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia. On withdrawing from Lebanon on 13 June the Israelis handed over their positions to Maronite Christian Lebanese militia with whom they had collaborated and not to UNIFIL, creating problems for the Syrian-dominated Arab peacekeeping force. The Lebanese crisis and the deteriorating situation in the Middle East alarmed Washington. It organized a conference of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Israel and the United States at Leeds Castle in Britain on 18 July which led to a statement from Sadat that unless Israel changed its position he would not negotiate any more.²⁰

Camp David

Carter decided to gamble on inviting Sadat and Begin to the presidential lodge at Camp David in Maryland. They accepted, and the conference took place on 4–17 September 1978. Carter acted as an intermediary between Begin and Sadat and was well supported by the American delegation which included Vance, Brzezinski, Harold Saunders and William Quandt. The Americans proposed that Resolution 242 should be the basis of the agreement. The Egyptians acknowledged Israel’s need for security, but wanted the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai, payment of reparations for the occupation of Egyptian territory, and some form of Palestinian self-determination in return for the normalization of relations. The Egyptian team included the Foreign Minister, Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel, who later resigned. It operated in a legalistic fashion and often on the principle that Egypt should not be isolated in the Arab world. Carter found it easier to work with Sadat, who was more impulsive. Begin, assisted by Ezer Weizman, the Minister of Defence, reiterated his Ismailia offer of ‘self-rule’ for the Palestinian Arabs, with Israel remaining responsible for security and public order on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The Sinai could be returned to Egypt but with reservations: Israel would retain its airports, and the established Jewish settlements. Begin insisted that Carter abide by Ford’s pledge to let Israel know of any peace proposal before showing it to the Arabs. Carter doubted Begin’s good faith. But the American President formed a relationship of friendship and mutual trust with Sadat.

Begin did compromise on the principle of Egyptian sovereignty in the Sinai. Weizman arranged for Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Agriculture but formerly a hawkish general, to telephone Begin to say that he did not foresee unmanageable security risks in evacuating all the bases and settlements in the Sinai. After this Begin gave way even though he had constantly resisted the idea of dismantling any Jewish settlement.

On 17 September Carter announced on American television that he had witnessed the signing of two basic documents by Sadat and Begin. In the one, the two leaders undertook to conclude a peace treaty within three months which would provide for an Israeli withdrawal from Sinai and the normalization of relations between Egypt and Israel. The other, ‘The Framework for Peace in the Middle East’, designated Resolution 242 as the basis, and stated that Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the representatives of the Palestinian people should participate in the resolution of the Palestinian problem. A Palestinian self-governing authority, freely elected by the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, should replace the Israeli military government. During the transition period of five years the inhabitants of the West Bank would exercise autonomy. As soon as possible, but not later than in the third year after the beginning of the transitional period, negotiations should start to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza and to conclude a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. The security of Israel should be maintained during this time, and the refugee problem resolved. These ‘framework’ agreements were supplemented by letters exchanged by Carter on one side and Sadat and Begin on the other, mentioning the need for Knesset approval for the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the Sinai and covering the different treatment of Jerusalem by the three parties. In a separate letter from Harold Brown, the American Secretary of Defense, to Weizman the United States undertook to help relocate Israeli air bases from the Sinai to Israeli territory.²¹

While still in the United States Begin said that Israel had the right to stay on the West Bank for an indefinite time, and that the expansion of Jewish settlements there would continue. Carter, worried that a failure of the Camp David agreements could mean that the Arabs would fall under Russian influence, remained determined that Egypt and Israel should sign a peace treaty. He was prepared to alienate the pro-Israeli vote and risk his election prospects. Begin visited Washington again in March 1979 to convince Washington that Israel was the only reliable ally in the Middle East. After a fruitless visit to Cairo and Jerusalem Carter appointed Robert Strauss, former Chairman of the Democratic Party, as special negotiator to implement the Camp David accords. On 26 March 1979 the President succeeded in getting Sadat and Begin to sign, in Washington, a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel which generally followed the provisions of the Camp David framework. The American envoys Strauss and, from October 1979, Sol Linowitz tried to get both Egypt and Israel to agree to a Palestinian homeland and safeguards for Israeli security. Washington, faced with a revolution in Iran and the likelihood of a government there that would back the Palestinians, wanted some sort of Arab–Israeli settlement that included concessions on the West Bank. But in September 1979 Israel allowed its citizens to purchase Arab land in the occupied territories. That month the American ambassador at the United Nations, Andrew Young, met the observer from the PLO. After Israeli protests Young resigned, stating that the American refusal to talk to the PLO was ridiculous. Israel continued its incursions into the Lebanon in response to Palestinian attacks. While Israel and Egypt talked about Palestinian autonomy there was unrest on the West Bank, and when in February 1980, in reaction to the killing of an Israeli settler, the Israeli Cabinet allowed, in principle, Jewish settlement in Hebron, riots broke out. The PLO killed six Jewish settlers in May, following the shooting of a Palestinian youth by an Israeli officer. The Israeli authorities reacted by blowing up houses near the scene of the terrorist ambush, and deported the mayors of Hebron and Halhul. The Security Council immediately condemned the Israeli action. At this time American attention was diverted by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the American officials taken hostage in Tehran. The Security Council, however, on 1 March 1980 unanimously asked Israel to dismantle the settlements, and censored its rule of Arab Jerusalem. Two days later Carter described the American affirmative vote as a bureaucratic error, and reversed it. He was seen as yet another American president giving way to the Zionist lobby in an election year.²²

The Arab reaction to Camp David was hostile. Moderate and radical Arab states joined together to condemn Egypt for deserting the common cause. An Arab summit at Baghdad on 5 November 1978 agreed, on Saudi insistence, to delay isolating Egypt until it had actually signed the peace treaty. Once it had done so, on 31 March, the Arab League imposed a political and economic boycott on Egypt and announced that its headquarters would be moved from Cairo to Tunis. Arab diplomats and statesmen close to Sadat disliked his methods and thought little of his achievements. In 1979 the PLO had diplomatic successes in Europe. The European Economic Community formally criticized Israeli policy and mentioned, for the first time, the role of the PLO: Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, demanded an end to Israeli settlement in the occupied territories. London, however, thought that links between the PLO and the Irish Republican Army hindered relations. Members of the European Economic Community tried, despite American disapproval, to intervene in the peace process and considered a suggestion to broaden Resolution 242 to include mention of self-determination for the Palestinians. The PLO was recognized by Ireland and Austria, and President Giscard d’Estaing of France said that it should be included in peace negotiations. In May 1980, in reaction to new Israeli settlement plans which included the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank and a bill in the Knesset which described Jersusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital, Egypt postponed negotiations with Israel indefinitely. Sadat, however, did resume talks in July to help Carter with his election. Egypt and Israel had exchanged ambassadors and there were regular flights between Ben-Gurion airport and Cairo, but the Egyptians seemed to be reluctant to improve relations further. The two countries were divided on the issue of Palestinian autonomy. These shifts in Egypt’s position coincided with American threats to veto any European resolution in the Security Council on Palestinian rights, and the statement on the Middle East from the European Economic Community countries meeting in Venice on 13 June 1980 that the Palestinian people had to be allowed to exercise fully its right to self-determination, and that the PLO should be associated with the negotiations. The president-elect of the European Commission, Gaston Thorn, went on a fact-finding tour of the Middle East and met Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO. However, European attempts to find a just solution to the Palestinian question were hampered by divisions in the Arab world following the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War in September 1980 and the change of administration in Washington.²³

Israeli settlements in the occupied territories

There was opposition within Israel to Begin’s policy of settlements in the occupied territories. This was led by the movement ‘Peace Now’. In 1979 the Israeli Supreme Court judged that as a settlement near Nablus did not have a necessary military purpose it should be taken down and the expropriated land returned to its original Arab owners. In reaction Israeli nationalists, in October 1979, founded Tehiya, a party dedicated to establishing Jewish settlements on the whole of the West Bank. Both Dayan and Weizman wanted a moderate policy for the West Bank, and within a few months of each other resigned from the Israeli Cabinet. With inflation running at 150 per cent, opinion polls suggested that Likud would not be returned in the general election scheduled for 1981. Labour, under Peres, wanted to partition the West Bank, keeping some settlements and the Jordan valley, but returning the heavily populated areas to Jordan. As if to pre-empt this Sharon, as Minister of Agriculture, planned twelve new settlements on the West Bank, and a further twelve on the border with Israel. Land was expropriated by military tribunals judging Arab claims of ownership. If the ownership could not be proved in three weeks the land could be given to Israeli settlers. Land Arabs were prepared to sell was bought with money from the Jewish National Fund. Ronald Reagan, shortly after his election as American President, perhaps ignorant of established American policy, said that Israeli settlements on the West Bank were not illegal. In any case his new administration was more concerned with a possible Russian threat to Middle Eastern oil than the Palestinian question. In a tour of the area in April 1981 the new Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, found that the Arabs were unsympathetic to his view that there were Middle East conflicts that could not be solved by Israeli concessions.

American policy enabled Begin to take a hard line in the Lebanon and possibly enhance his election prospects. In March 1981 Syria agreed that the Lebanese government could send troops to join UNIFIL in southern Lebanon. This led to fighting between the Israeli-backed Phalangist militia under Haddad with Syrian troops as well as with the Palestinians. Israel intervened and on 28 April its airforce shot down two Syrian helicopters. Syria responded by placing SAM 6 anti-aircraft missiles inside Lebanon to protect its positions in the Bekaa valley. Begin wanted to destroy the missiles, but was persuaded by the Americans to wait. Reagan sent Philip Habib to negotiate with the warring factions, but Begin renewed Israeli attacks on Lebanon and demanded that Syria remove anti-aircraft missiles stationed within its own borders and threatened Israeli action to achieve this. Then on 7 June, without warning and using information supplied by the United States, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant outside Baghdad claiming that Iraq would shortly be able to make nuclear bombs. Begin knew that this was not so, and the raid was unnecessary. Peres accused him of electioneering.²⁴ The attack was made by an American-supplied F-16 bomber, and the American congress investigated whether Israel broke an agreement that these weapons should not be used in an act of aggression against another state. But Reagan defended the Israeli position. Against this background an election took place in Israel, marked by social divisions between the European and Oriental Jews, in which Begin’s invective and hardline foreign policy resulted in his retaining power in a coalition with the religious parties. Ariel Sharon became Minister of Defence.²⁵

Begin continued his policy in the Lebanon and responded to PLO retaliatory attacks on settlements in Galilee with raids on Beirut itself. Habib, with the assistance of the Saudis, managed to achieve an understanding between Begin, Asad and Arafat, and there was a cease-fire on 24 July 1981. Begin dismissed a Middle East peace plan suggested by Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, which indicated that Saudi Arabia might recognize Israel in return for withdrawal from the occupied territories and the setting up of an independent Palestinian state, as being intended to destroy Israel. On 14 December Begin saw a bill through the Knesset which formally annexed the Syrian Golan Heights. Washington disapproved. In October it had agreed to sell advanced surveillance aircraft, AWACS, to Saudi Arabia despite Zionist opposition in congress, Begin having described the Saudis as medieval, despotic and supporters of terrorism to pro-Israeli groups in the United States. In February 1982 Casper Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, visited Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan, and afterwards hinted that Washington might redirect its military support away from Israel and towards the Arabs. Zionist protests meant that Reagan let Begin know that his administration would ensure Israeli military superiority. Earlier, when Reagan had temporarily suspended American arms sales to Israel as a sign of disapproval over the annexation of the Golan Heights, Begin had accused some individuals in the Reagan administration of anti-Semitism but had said that he would continue to honour the commitment to hand back the last third of the Sinai to Egypt on schedule. Sadat had been assassinated by Muslin extremists and replaced by President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was careful not to offend the Israelis, and Begin even used the Israeli army to evict illegal settlers from the Yamit area. Egypt took back the key strategic positions of Rafah and Sharm el Sheikh on 25 April 1982.²⁶

‘Operation Peace for Galilee’

Developments in the Lebanon, and in particular the threat of Syrian missiles, convinced the Israeli Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, that a large-scale military operation would be needed to protect Israel’s sixty-three Galilee settlements and towns from raids across the northern border. A partnership with the Maronite Christians could help. Sharon concurred, as did Begin and the Likud. The strategic objectives were possibly wider. As well as destroying military units of the PLO and securing an alliance with a Maronite-controlled Lebanon that would concede Israel territory south of the Litani River, there were hopes that Palestinians would overthrow Hussein in Jordan. Yitzhak Shamir, the Israeli Foreign Minister, had publicly proclaimed in Cairo, on 23 February 1982, the policy increasingly associated with Begin and the Likud that Jordan was the Palestinian state. If Jordan became Arab Palestine it was anticipated demands for Palestinian self-determination on the West Bank would lessen and the occupied territory could be formally annexed by Israel.²⁷ The Israeli Cabinet had reservations when it was informed in December 1981 of the plan to install the Maronite leader Bashir Gemayel as President of the Lebanon; there was concern about the prospect of a major clash with the Syrians. The Americans were told of the planned invasion. At Sadat’s funeral in October 1981 Begin mentioned to Haig that planning had started for a move into the Lebanon. Begin, however, did tell Reagan on 20 January 1982 that Israel would not invade the Lebanon. But Pentagon officials and Haig were told of Israeli plans that became known as ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ in February by the head of Israeli military intelligence, General Yehoshua Saguy. On 7 May, while in London on a diplomatic mission during the Falklands crisis, Haig had a message from Begin that an Israeli operation in the Lebanon might be inevitable. Later that month both Sharon and the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Moshe Arens, told Haig that an Israeli move was imminent. Haig and Reagan replied that while Israel should defend itself if attacked, response to provocation should be proportionate to that provocation. On 28 May Haig wrote to Begin urging restraint. But Washington’s reactions seemed mild. Warnings of serious reverberations in the United States were not as specific as threats to suspend aid to Israel. On 15 May 1982 Arafat, through Brian Urquhart, the Assistant Undersecretary-General of the United Nations, also warned Begin that Israel should not try to break him in the Lebanon: Begin would not succeed. Throughout April and May the Israeli military were looking for a pretext to attack Lebanon. That came on 3 June with the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London. Arafat was not responsible. It was the work of the Palestine National Liberation Movement led by Abu Nidal, who had tried to murder Arafat. Israeli intelligence told Begin that Abu Nidal’s objective was to provoke an Israeli attack on PLO strongholds in the Lebanon. Begin refused to pass this information on to the Cabinet. The Israeli airforce bombed PLO targets in the Lebanon penetrating as far as West Beirut, and the PLO responded by shelling Israeli settlements in Galilee. This provided the Israeli justification for the invasion of the Lebanon.²⁸

Concealing from the Israeli Cabinet his overall intentions Sharon mounted a massive military operation in which the Israeli army quickly reached the outskirts of Beirut. Disregarding Cabinet opinion, Sharon provoked Syria and destroyed eighty of its aircraft and damaged its SAM missile sites. Israel’s pause south of Beirut was temporary, to avoid anticipated heavy Israeli casualties in street fighting. The Security Council drafted a resolution condemning Israel on 8 June. An appeal from Haig to Reagan, dining at Windsor with the Queen against the background of the Falklands crisis, led to Jeane Kirkpatrick, the American delegate to the United Nations, being instructed to veto the resolution. Instead, on 9 June, Reagan wrote to Begin asking him to accept a cease-fire while at the same time sending a similar request with Habib to the Syrian President. Begin’s procrastination led to Reagan drafting a harsh letter to the Israeli Prime Minister, but again Haig intervened. Israel did agree to a cease-fire with Syria on 11 June. During the two-month siege of Beirut, lasting from 13 June to 12 August, the capital was bombed almost continuously, resulting in around 18,000 dead and 30,000 wounded, most of the casualties being civilians. Israel said that it would only end the siege if the PLO forces totalling around 9,000 fighters surrendered or left Lebanon together with the Syrian troops still in Beirut. The Americans attempted to mediate but at a press conference on 30 June, while denying that the United States had given Israel a ‘green light’ to attack Beirut, Reagan endorsed Israel’s insistence that the PLO forces should leave Lebanon. Reagan objected to the Israeli use of American-supplied cluster bombs, and on 10 August, after Israeli bombing raids on West Beirut, Reagan told Begin that he was outraged. Israel achieved one of its principal objectives in the Lebanon when, through American mediation, the Lebanese government and the PLO agreed to a cease-fire and the evacuation of PLO fighters from the Lebanon. The evacuation started on 21 August with the Palestinians going to different Arab countries. The PLO headquarters, which had been in Beirut for the twelve years since the Jordanian civil war, were eventually moved to Tunisia. A multinational force of American, French and Italian troops saw that the agreement was implemented. Haig, who had felt that his policy had been undermined through attempts by Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, to draw analogies between Israel’s action in the Lebanon and the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands and an apparent determination to punish Israel, had resigned, but had been asked to stay on by Reagan in the interim period to manage the Lebanon crisis before George Shultz took over. He spoke of a new opportunity for peace. The authority of the Lebanese government should be restored and all foreign troops removed from the Lebanon.

At the same time as this new American approach, Israel tried to achieve another of its objectives in Operation Peace for Galilee. On 23 August Bashir Gemayel, the Maronite military leader, was elected President of the Lebanon. He had secret talks with Israel about an alliance that would eliminate the Palestinian and Syrian influence in the Lebanon and establish a Maronite supremacy. Bashir Gemayel met Begin and Sharon in northern Israel on 1 September. The Israelis demanded that their ally in south Lebanon, Haddad, be Minister of Defence. The Israelis wanted to control Lebanon. On 14 September the President Elect was killed by a bomb at the Phalangist Party headquarters. A few hours later the Israeli army moved into West Beirut. This was a violation of the cease-fire agreement. Sharon and Bashir Gemayel had agreed on 12 September that Phalangist militia could clean out the remaining 2,000 PLO fighters concealed in the refugee camps of West Beirut. A few hours after Gemayel’s assassination Sharon told Eitan to allow the Phalangists into the refugee camps. Begin was not informed. On 16 September Sharon told the Phalangist commanders that they could destroy the Palestinian terrorists, but that there should not, however, be uncontrolled attacks on civilians. The Phalangist militia included survivors from Damour, where the PLO, during the Lebanese civil war five years earlier, had killed hundreds of Christian civilians. Israeli troops surrounded the camps at Sabra and Shatila and opened a way through for the Phalangists. Israeli officers watching the camps suspected a massacre and told army headquarters but the commander was not apprised. Informed by Israeli pressmen of what was happening, the commander ordered the Phalangists out, but while his orders were being interpreted more Phalangists entered the camp and there was a further night of slaughter. Shamir was also told but did nothing. On 18 September Sharon went to Sabra and Shatila and despite his apparent orders the Phalangists did not leave for four hours, time for most of the bodies to be covered. As the Israeli Cabinet attributed the atrocity to a Lebanese unit, disinterred bodies were being photographed by newsmen and the estimates of dead ranged from 1,000 to 2,000. On 24 September a demonstration organized by Peace Now and the Labour Alignment in Tel Aviv was attended by 400,000. Begin, faced with not only international outrage but a domestic explosion, ordered an enquiry. The commission reported in February 1983, criticizing Begin, Shamir, Sharon and Eitan. Sharon resigned as Minister of Defence but stayed on in the Cabinet. Israel’s objective of controlling a Maronite supremacy in the Lebanon was not achieved. On 21 September 1982 Amin Gemayel, who wanted an accommodation with Syria, took over from his murdered brother.²⁹

The American government had undertaken to protect civilian Palestinians, which was taken to include the families of Palestinian fighters. Sabra and Shatila marred the United States’ reputation at a time when Reagan was sponsoring a new plan to settle the Arab–Israeli conflict. This plan, announced on 1 September and associated with the new Secretary of State, Shultz, envisaged the restoration of territories occupied in 1967 to the Arabs, but at the same time rejected a Palestinian state and proposed instead self-government for the Palestinians in association with Jordan. Israel rejected it and renewed its programme of settlements on the West Bank. King Hussein of Jordan said that he needed a mandate from the Palestinians. Arafat and the Palestinian moderates wanted to give Hussein this mandate, but sections of the Palestine National Council backed by Syria opposed the idea at a meeting in Algiers in February 1983. At the end of April 1983 Hussein abandoned the talks.³⁰

The massacre at Sabra and Shatila led to the return of United States marines to the Lebanon as part of a multinational force. They achieved little and were confronted by Iranian terrorists and their Shiite comrades in the Hezbollah, or Party of God, which operated from the Bekaa valley. The American embassy in Beirut was blown up on 18 April 1983 with forty-six left dead. Islamic Jihad or the Holy War, inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, said that it was responsible. Shultz travelled to the Middle East on 24 April and negotiated an agreement between the Israeli and Lebanese governments on 17 May which, while securing the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Lebanon, did allow for joint Israeli–Lebanese patrols to operate inside the Lebanese border. Israel made its agreement contingent on a simultaneous Syrian withdrawal from the Bekaa valley. Asad was intransigent: the negotiations had not covered Israeli withdrawals from the Golan Heights or the occupied territories. He pursued a policy of supporting the Palestine National Liberation Movement which opposed Arafat’s more moderate line on the Palestinian question. The Syrian army helped the Palestine National Liberation Movement under their commander, Abu Musa, to take over Palestinian positions in the Bekaa valley. Arafat was forced to leave Syria in June by Asad. Initially refusing to withdraw its troops, Israel found its soldiers increasingly exposed to attacks by Lebanese and Palestinian fighters. The Israeli government admitted that the Lebanese venture had cost at least 500 Israeli lives and there were demonstrations within the country demanding that Israel get out. On 20 July the Israeli Cabinet decided that Israeli troops should be withdrawn to the Awali River, which was a more easily defensible position. On 28 August Begin, depressed and affected by his wife’s death, announced that he would resign on 15 September. He was succeeded by Shamir, associated with the Stern gang and the assassinations of Moyne and Bernadotte, and known for his opposition to Camp David. The Israeli retreat from the Shouf mountains exposed the American marines to the cross-fire between the Lebanese army and the Shiah–Druse coalition, supported by Syria, and announced by Walid Jumblatt on 23 July. Guns of the American fleet off the coast of Lebanon were directed at Druse strongholds, in effect giving the appearance of the American marines being there to assist the Maronites in the civil war. The Syrians shot down two American planes. On 23 October 1983 suicide bomb attacks wiped out the headquarters of both the American and French contingents of the multinational force in Beirut. Two hundred and sixty-five marines and 58 French soldiers were killed. A Shiite group with Iranian connections said that it was responsible. The new Israeli Defence Minister, Moshe Arens, persuaded Washington that American difficulties in the Lebanon were a consequence of not working with Israeli forces. Despite objections from the Department of Defense, Shultz and Reagan offered Israel an agreement of strategic co-operation on both military and political levels aimed at countering the threat to mutual Israeli and American interests by increasing Russian involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. Reagan said that if there were a collapse of order in the Lebanon the marines would leave. With the Lebanese army disintegrating along sectarian lines, and Druse militia linking up with their Shiite allies in the southern suburbs of Beirut in February 1984, the Americans and the rest of the multinational force departed. Gemayel, sensitive to Moslem opinion, cancelled the agreement of 17 May 1983 with Israel in return for guarantees about internal security from Asad. But Israel continued to control its security zone in the south of Lebanon.³¹

Politics in the Middle East in the decade following the October War were dominated by the United States. Washington initiated the settlement between Egypt and Israel, and oversaw the detachment of Egypt from the Arab world that followed the Camp David accords. At times annoyed with Israel and particularly with Begin’s apparent intransigence over what he called Samaria and Judea, on the whole its support of Israel rarely wavered. Indeed during this decade the United States kept Israel in existence with its massively increasing economic aid, enabling Israel to maintain the third largest airforce in the world. Led from 1976 by presidents who had fundamentalist Old Testament views of the Jewish presence in Israel, the Zionist point of view was also sustained in Washington by the activities of the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Increasingly aware of Palestinian claims, Washington still hesitated to recognize the concept of a Palestinian state and protected Israel internationally through its veto, or in the case of European peace initiatives, threat of the veto, in the Security Council of the United Nations. As Israel moved further to the right, first under Begin and then Shamir, and established more and more Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, Washington’s credibility in the Arab world as a power willing or able to moderate Israel, and so to achieve a peace settlement, declined. In Arab eyes Washington seemed reluctant to restrain the ambitions of Israel to destroy the Palestinian presence in the Lebanon and even became a party in the war on the side of the Maronites, Israel’s allies, with the shelling of Druse strongholds. Increasingly the United States seemed to regard Israel as its only reliable ally in the Middle East at a time when it felt that Russia was seizing the opportunity to increase its influence in the area with the Iran–Iraq War. The Arabs did not form a united opposition. Not only did they exclude the most powerful Arab state and the leading protagonist in the previous Arab–Israeli wars, Egypt, but they split between the hardline and the moderate states and in their approach to the different factions of Palestinians. Israel’s invasion of the Lebanon did not achieve its objectives and resulted in domestic protest but, if anything, Israel emerged in a strong position because of its ‘memorandum of understanding’ of 1975 with the United States. By 1984 the Palestinians had achieved widespread international sympathy and even diplomatic recognition. But in terms of the quality of life for the average Palestinian that counted for little. Israel seemed increasingly stubborn. Perhaps the Arab view that only the United States could successfully pressure Israel was an illusion. But the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, thought that without this there was little point in compromise.

References

1David Hirst and Irene Beeson, Sadat (London 1981), pp. 177–81; Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (London 1982), pp. 632–46.

2Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 747–978, 1032–110; John Mackinlay, The Peacekeepers. An Assessment of Peace-Keeping Operations at the Arab–Israel Interface (London 1989), pp. 119–98; George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East (London 1990), pp. 127–35.

3Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 1123–43; Hirst and Beeson, op. cit., pp. 188–9.

4Matti Golan, Shimon Peres (London 1982), pp. 141–7; Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, From the Aftermath of the Yom Kippur War (New York 1987), pp. 3–5.

5Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker? (London 1987), pp. 364–430; Shaul Mishal, The PLO under Arafat (New Haven 1986), pp. 15–23; Aaron David Miller, The PLO and the Politics of Survival (New York 1983), pp. 31–5; Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement 1949–1993 (Oxford 1997), pp. 329–57; Moshe Shemesh, ‘The PLO: from armed struggle to political solution’, in Barry Rubin, Joseph Ginat and Moshe Ma’oz (Eds), From War to Peace: Arab-Israeli Relations 1973–1993 (Brighton 1994), pp. 78–87.

6Lenczowski, op. cit., p. 139.

7Bernard Avishai, The Tragedy of Zionism. Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel (New York 1985), pp. 266–7; David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch (London 1977), pp. 329–30.

8See David Taras and Morton Weinfeld, ‘Continuity and criticism. North American Jews and Israel’, International Journal, XLV (1990), pp. 661–84 for an assessment of AIPAC.

9Howard M. Sachar, Egypt and Israel (New York 1981), pp. 235–44; Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity (London 1978), pp. 291–3; Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal (London 1979), pp. 246–8, 289–92, 309; Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston 1979), pp. 251, 256, 261, 274–7; Ismail Fahmy, Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East (London 1983), pp. 164–7; Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 147–54.

10Mohammed K. Shadid, The United States and the Palestinians (London 1981), pp. 98–106; Naseer H. Aruri, ‘Palestinian nationalism since 1967: an overview’, in Yehuda Lukacs and Abdalla M. Battah (Eds), The Arab–Israeli Conflict: Two Decades of Change (London 1988), pp. 71–82.

11Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon (London 1985), pp. 125–49; Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon 1970–1985 (London 1985), pp. 17–59; Mackinlay, op. cit., pp. 28–33.

12Lawrence Joffe, ‘Historical survey’, in Martin Wright (Ed.), Israel and the Palestinians (Harlow 1989), pp. 30–5.

13Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith (London 1982), pp. 273–82; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (London 1983), p. 84; Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in American Foreign Policy (New York 1983), p. 64; Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 158–62.

14For accounts of the rise of ‘political messianism’ see Adam Keller, Terrible Days. Social Divisions and Political Paradoxes in Israel (Amsterdam 1987), pp. 131–6; Michael Jansen, Dissonance in Zion (London 1987), pp. 50–5; Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (Oxford 1991), pp. 107–66; Richard D. Hecht, ‘The political culture of Israel’s radical right: commentary on Ehud Sprinkzak’s The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 5 (Spring 1993), pp. 132–59.

15See Tom Segev, 1949. The First Israelis (London 1986), pp. 93–194 for an account of this.

16Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 7–28; Golan, op. cit., pp. 141–97; Sasson Sofer, Begin. An Anatomy of Leadership (Oxford 1988), pp. 33–56; Ilan Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 1977–1983 (New York 1987), pp. 1–93.

17Moshe Dayan, Break-through: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations (London 1981) pp. 26–74; Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 166–8.

18Dayan, Break-through, pp. 26–90; Sadat, op. cit., pp. 295–313; Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 48–52.

19Mackinlay, op. cit., pp. 34–41; Bjorn Skogmo, UNIFIL: International Peacekeeping in Lebanon, 1978–1988 (Boulder 1989), pp. 7–77; Kirsten E. Schulze, Israel’s Covert Diplomacy in Lebanon (London 1998), p. 102; Sayigh, op. cit., pp. 358–72.

20Dayan, Break-through, pp. 115–48; Yair Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon. The Israeli-Syrian Deterrence Dialogue (Baltimore 1987), pp. 71-82; Carter, op. cit., pp. 303–15.

21Gertrude Hirschler and Lester S. Eckman, Menachem Begin: From Freedom Fighter to Statesman (New York 1979), pp. 33–43; Carter, op. cit., pp. 319–403; William B. Quandt, Camp David. Peacemaking and Politics (Washington 1986); Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel, The Camp David Accords (London 1986); Ezer Weizman, Battle for Peace (New York 1981); Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (London 1983), pp. 234–88; Mohamed Heikal, Secret Channels: The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations (London 1996), pp. 245–89.

22Carter, op. cit., pp. 405–21; Brzezinski, op. cit., pp. 440–3.

23Carter, op. cit., pp. 491–496; Hirst and Beeson, op. cit., pp. 322–57; Howard M. Sachar, Egypt and Israel (New York 1981), pp. 296–313; Hazem Zaki Nuseibeh, Palestine and the United Nations (London 1981), pp. 155–69; Mishal, op. cit., pp. 86–156.

24See Stephen Green, Living by the Sword. America and Israel in the Middle East 1968–87 (London 1988), pp. 35–52; Joseph Fitchett, ‘A spy mystery: why did Clinton deny Israeli plea?’, International Herald Tribune (23 Oct. 1998), pp. 1, 6.

25Mordechai Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace: A History of the Israeli Peace Movement (Washington, DC 1996), pp. 93–118; Dayan, Break-through, pp. 303–20; Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 108–32; Alexander M. Haig, Caveat. Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (London 1984), pp. 169–72; Patrick Seale, Asad (Berkeley 1989), pp. 366–76; Eric Silver, Begin. A Biography (London 1984), pp. 212–16.

26Seale, op. cit., pp. 372–3; Coral Bell, The Reagan Paradox (Aldershot 1989), pp. 90–3; Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 254–63.

27See Uzi Benziman, Sharon – an Israeli Caesar (New York 1986); Keller, op. cit., p. 129.

28Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace (London 1990), pp. 97–9; Haig, op. cit., pp. 315–37; George W. Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon (Washington 1984), pp. 21–9; Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 215–20; Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 169–76; Rabinovich, op. cit., pp. 113–20; Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon War (London 1985), pp. 31–108.

29Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 184–203; Seale, op. cit., pp. 388–93; Weinberger, op. cit., pp. 104–7; Heikal, Secret Channels: The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations, pp. 352–61; Sayigh, op. cit., pp. 522–43; Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri, The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs (London 1998), pp. 165–76.

30Lenczowski, op. cit., pp. 263–7; Seale, op. cit., pp. 400–5.

31Weinberger, op. cit., pp. 107–21; Sachar, A History of Israel, Vol. II, pp. 201–12; Richard A. Gabriel, Operation Peace for Galilee (New York 1984); Hart, op. cit., pp. 458–74; Seale, op. cit., pp. 405–20; Richard B. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Bloomington 1993), pp. 167–211.