Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said today that if Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin are saying nothing more to each other in private than they said in their address in the Knesset today, “then we will see a rapid worsening of the situation.”
Interviewed on NBC-TV following the speeches Kissinger outlined what he believed had to result from the Sadat visit. “The problem is to emerge from this meeting with a sense on both sides that they have made, maybe, some sacrifices, for the sake of peace, and a new relationship that opens a new era, “he said. ” Nobody should leave with a sense that he made a concession or that he gained a victory.”
Kissinger, who reportedly talked by telephone to both Sadat and Begin last week, said that if the two could “break through the legalistic points and agree on what they want to accomplish–frontiers, security, the nature of peace–they will find some formulas to deal with it.”
The former Secretary of State speculated that Sadat made his dramatic trip to Israel because if the Geneva conference convened with agreement only on procedural matters it would lead to deadlock and a deadlock would lead to an “explosion” in the Mideast. He said if Sadat leaves Jerusalem without having established a means of proceeding toward a peace agreement at Geneva, the situation will worsen.
Kissinger said he thought it was significant that Sadat in his Knesset speech did not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization and that in calling for a Palestinian state, the Egyptian President did not speak with great passion or go into detail.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
