The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (56 page)

The triple handshake: President Sadat, President Carter & Prime Minister Begin after signing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, The White House, Washington, 26 March 1979

“Yes, it worked,” concurred Rabin. “Imagine Sadat ever coming to Jerusalem if we’d still been shooting at each other in the Sinai, instead of building up mutual trust. Mind you”
–
this with undisguised admiration
–
“for all of Begin’s opposition to my agreement at the time, once he assumed the premiership he handled matters brilliantly.”

A flourish of trumpets and a standing ovation heralded the entry of the Egyptian president and the Israeli prime minister, along with their wives, accompanied by the American president and the first lady. All three men wore dark suits, while their wives displayed long dresses
–
Mrs. Carter in coral, Mrs. Sadat in beige, and Mrs. Begin in green. A protocol officer guided them to one of the scores of tables decorated with forsythia and yellow tulips, all illuminated by candles encased in miniature hurricane lamps.

“Excuse me, sir, are you Mr. Avner?” interrupted a middle-aged gentleman in a yarmulke, marking my own. “I’m general manager of Schleider’s kosher caterers in Baltimore. I just want to make sure everything is satisfactory.”

He had to pitch his voice high above the hubbub. His eyebrows rose in pleasure when I complimented him on the elegance of his catering.

“We had to prepare everything in such a rush,” he said with professional pride. “It was only on Saturday night [this was Monday evening] that we got the call from the White House to supply one hundred and ten kosher meals for this banquet. They also asked us to prepare meals for Prime Minister and Mrs. Begin for the lunch with President Carter and President Sadat before the signing ceremony. I hope they enjoyed it.”

“I’m sure they did,” I answered, assuming they had.

He arched his neck and stood on his tiptoes, the better to see what was going on around him. “I have to keep an eye on my waiters to make sure they’re serving the right people,” he explained.

A discreetly colored place card marked the settings of the kosher farers, and his waiters wore a slightly different garb amid the small army of other waiters who were serving a menu of Columbia River salmon in aspic with cheese straws, followed by roast beef and spring vegetables, and a hazelnut and chocolate mousse for dessert.

“As you see,” he said, stretching out a hand toward a tray borne by one of his waiters, who was squeezing by us, “our kosher menu is similar to theirs
–
salmon mousse followed by boneless beef prime rib and the same variety of vegetables. For dessert we’re serving chocolate mousse with non-dairy creamer.”

Again, I expressed my admiration and he, now buoyant, elaborated, “We wanted to break out our finest gold flatware and our best service pieces for the occasion, but the White House told us to tone it down. Ours, they said, shouldn’t be too different from theirs. And, as you see” – he was pointing to my own place setting – “they’re not.”

We were interrupted by the announcement of the toasts as waiters, squeezing between the densely packed tables, began passing out coffee, brandy, and cigars. Then came the entertainment, by artists representing the three signatory nations
–
the United States choosing soprano Leontyne Price, Egypt a trio playing guitar, drum, and electric organ, and Israel, the violinists Yitzhak Pearlman and Pinchas Zuckerman.

In the boisterous mingling that followed, I happened upon Ambassador Samuel Lewis, who had apparently just shared a joke with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, a staid man as a rule, who was now bent over in a guffaw of laughter
–
until he saw me. With sudden earnestness he asked, “That document at Blair House you said you had to get to Mr. Begin without delay, otherwise there’d be no peace-signing
–
you weren’t serious, were you?”

I described to him the stressful circumstances of that moment, and he took my explanation in the best of spirits. As we were talking someone squeezed up from behind, and Secretary Vance turned to greet a tall, pleasant-looking fellow in his sixties, whose keen, regular features and piercing blue eyes were wreathed in smiles. “Congratulations, Mr. Secretary,” said the man. “I guess it’s been a busy time for you these last few months, knocking this historic peace treaty together.”

“And a few heads, too,” said the Secretary, in jest.

He was speaking to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a cherished advocate of Israeli causes and a relentless champion on behalf of Jews locked behind the communist Iron Curtain.

“I don’t pretend to know much about Sadat,” said the senator, “but I know Mr. Begin to be a man of strong principle
–
tough to negotiate with, but his word is his bond.”

“I’d certainly grant that,” said Ambassador Lewis.

“Indeed so,” said Vance, benevolently. “But one of the problems in this negotiation was that, unlike Sadat, Mr. Begin is a man of many words. It can be terribly irritating at times, but he relishes a good argument, sometimes just for the sheer sake of it. That’s what makes him a good parliamentarian, I suppose. But in these peace negotiations we sometimes wasted a lot of time arguing about the meaning of words and, in the process, he occasionally got lost in the trees. That was one of the problems Sadat had with Begin. Sadat sees things broadly, his eye always on the horizon. He has no desire or willingness to get down to the nitty-gritty of arguing out the finer points of a document. He leaves that to his subordinates. Mr. Begin, on the other hand, can get lost in the small print; he’s pedantic about semantics.”

“But those semantics can be vital,” said the senator, whose reputation as a tough negotiator was legendary, not least as a leading proponent of increased American aid to Israel, and blocking Soviet trade advantages with the U.S. so long as Russia’s Jews were prohibited from leaving at will.

“Vital, yes, but you also have to take into account that Mr. Begin is a very good poker player,” said Ambassador Lewis irreverently.

“Oh, that he is
–
a poker player, first class!” confirmed Vance. “He’s as sharp as they come
–
one of the best interlocutors I’ve ever negotiated with.”

“In what sense?” Jackson asked.

“In the sense that as I quickly learned when negotiating with him, he could sometimes display a wounded heart, as if to say in disbelief, ‘How can you possibly ask me to make such a sacrifice?’ And then he won’t budge an inch, sitting his opponent out until
he
does the yielding. He can outsit the man on the other side of the table time and time again. That’s what I call a good poker player.”

“You make him sound devious,” said Jackson. “I don’t believe he is. The man genuinely believes what he says. He’s haunted by the Holocaust. He’s a patriot. He fears for his country’s future. His whole life has been a struggle for Israel. There’s no other side to him.”

“I never suggested otherwise,” said Vance defensively. “He certainly is a patriot, with the interests of his country at heart. Indeed, I’ve always found him very clear in his objectives, very precise in his thinking when it comes to Israel’s defense. What I’m saying is, he sometimes will make a demand that he is later willing to sacrifice, as a bargaining chip. That’s why he’s such a skillful negotiator.”

“I have to add, he has a masterly sense of timing,” affirmed Lewis. “He can stonewall a situation, sending everybody nearly crazy, and then, at the very last minute, when everything seems about to collapse, he’ll make a tiny concession that will, by then, look huge to everybody else. His instincts identify the very last moment to offer a compromise, by which time it looks like he’s made a tremendous sacrifice. It’s a brilliant negotiating technique.”

“So, what comes next after this peace treaty?” Jackson asked.

“The West Bank and Gaza,” replied Vance, solemnly. “Israel is committed to continuing ongoing talks with the Egyptians for self-rule for the Palestinians. Five years after the self-rule has been established it will be open to review.”

“I hardly think Mr. Begin will be in a mood for West Bank concessions after those five years,” said the senator, soberly.

“The Lord works in wondrous ways,” said Vance, raising his eyes skyward as if in search of a miracle. “The Begin I know today won’t budge from what he calls Judea and Samaria. He’s made no bones about that. He said to me, ‘I will never preside over the transfer of one inch of the Land of Israel to anyone else’s sovereignty, because the country belongs to us. Others may come after me who might feel differently, but not me.’ That’s what he said.”

“But he has agreed, has he not, to make no claims of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza during that five-year autonomy period, if and when it ever starts?” asked the senator.

“Indeed, he has. And when I’ve asked him what the sovereign disposition of the West Bank after those five years would be, the answer he gave me was, ‘By that time I may not be around.’”

“That’s what he said?”

“In those very words
–
‘I may not be around.’”
73

The Washington ceremonies done, the prime minister flew to New York for a hero’s welcome that included an extended weekend of public rallies, receptions, interviews, meetings with lay and religious leaders, and the mandatory fund-raising banquets for Israeli causes. It was a hectic, emotional, euphoric outpouring of Jewish wining, dining, and celebration, and Begin reveled in it. As was his wont, he spent the Sabbath day resting in his suite on the thirty-eighth floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, but came Saturday eve and off he was, making a grand entrance into the hotel’s grand ballroom where two thousand people, black-tied and evening-gowned, rose and roared their acclaim, and wrote out their checks for Israel with glittering abandon.

Then came the serious business of Sunday, whose morning program began with a visit to a modest Lower East Side apartment, there to pay respect to the world-renowned rabbinic luminary and leading halachic authority of the day, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. This was followed by a
CBS
interview on
Face the Nation
, while in the prime minister’s Waldorf Astoria suite on the thirty-eighth floor, another camera crew was setting up equipment for an interview of a different kind. It was to be a documentary for posterity
–
a relaxed soliloquy in which Mr. Begin would be given all the time he needed to talk candidly in depth about his life and times. The brainchild of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, head of the Conference of American Rabbis, the footage was intended for archival purposes, to be released at some unspecified future date. He and Begin were old friends, having worked closely together during Schindler’s chairmanship of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

As I sat with Schindler going over his notes, awaiting the prime minister’s arrival, a demonstration was beginning to form on Park Avenue below. We knew that the police had granted a permit to an ultra-Orthodox group who were protesting an archeological dig in Jerusalem at a location called “Area
G
.” Human bones had allegedly been uncovered at the site, thereby rendering the ground hallow. The group protesting were zealous disciples of the fanatically anti-Zionist, New York-based Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, many of whose followers were associated with a fanatical sect called
Neturei Karta
–
Aramaic for Guardians of the City. To these Jews the State of Israel was, by its very existence, a secular blasphemy, a man-made obscenity, a sinful obstacle along the road to divine redemption.

The
NYPD
had assured us that while microphones would be used for speeches, the volume would not reach the prime minister’s suite, thirty-eight floors above. Looking down, I could discern the cordoned-off area where the demonstration was beginning to assemble, between 49th and 50th Streets, right in front of the hotel. From where I stood, everything was in miniature. A mobile speaker’s platform was positioned in the center of the block, on the south-bound lane. Hundreds of tiny beings, all garbed in black, were gradually filling the cordoned-off block in what seemed to be absolute silence. No street noise penetrated the multi-paned windows of the hotel suite; it all looked so neat, so symmetrical, so choreographed. The black was sprinkled with spots of dark blue, these being the policemen posted in no particular pattern. They wore no crash helmets, nor did they carry shields or batons. Jewish demonstrations were never violent, it was said. There was nothing sinister about the feel of it all. Indeed, I could not but marvel at the innocent civility of the occasion, how this great metropolis was taking in its stride an anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstration on a Sunday afternoon in the very heart of Manhattan, and shrugging it off as just one more community of New Yorkers doing its own thing in its own way, as the law allows.

Unaware of the protestors below, the prime minister entered the lounge and greeted Schindler warmly. Then, observing me looking out of the window, he asked what was attracting my attention. When I told him he strode over to look down.
“
Nu, nu
,” he said, “thank God America is a free country, where Jews can demonstrate without fear.” He then clapped his hands, placed himself in the armchair facing the camera, and said with alacrity, “Shall we begin?” And the cameras rolled.