Premier Menachem Begin left for the United States early this morning accompanied by his top legal, political and military advisors, for a meeting with President Carter in Washington on Friday. The meeting was requested by Begin, who said it was urgent, when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance arrived in Israel last Saturday night. Carter responded favorably Sunday and set the meeting date for Friday when Vance will have completed his current tour of Middle East capitals.
Begin’s trip was announced here only after midnight last night. The Premier’s surprise departure for the U.S. on the day of the opening of the Cairo conference and the tight secrecy that surrounded his plans raised a storm of speculations as to the meeting’s purpose. (See related story from Washington)
Neither the Premier nor Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan who saw him off at Ben Gurion Airport cast much light on that score. It is widely believed here that Begin is taking the peace proposals that Israel will submit at the Cairo conference to Carter in an effort to ensure American support for Israel’s positions.
His entourage includes Attorney General Aharon Barak, the government’s top legal advisor; Avner Yehuda, the Premier’s political advisor; Gen. Ephraim Poran, his military aide de camp; and Shmuel Katz, his information advisor. Barak’s inclusion aroused the greatest interest. Begin told reporters at the airport that Barak was needed in Washington because there were legal problems of prime importance in the peace-making process and it was necessary to have a legal expert at his side during important talks. He said that he had informed President Anwar Sadat of his trip to Washington.
The Premier also reiterated that Israel was striving for a comprehensive peace settlement and expressed the hope that other Arab countries will join in negotiations at Cairo or elsewhere. U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis left for Washington on the same plane. While en route to the United States, Begin sent a message of good wishes to the Cairo conference. His message stated: “People everywhere hope and pray that Cairo will be a foundation of true peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the peace which is necessary for Israel and her great Arab neighbors.”
SPECULATION ON PEACE PROPOSALS
Speculation was rife that Dayan was also about to leave today for a secret meeting at some undisclosed location with a top level Egyptian official, probably Acting Foreign Minister Butros Ghali. Dayan flatly denied this at the airport. “I do not intend to leave the country,” he said. Begin added that Dayan’s reply “needs no seconding from me.”
But Haaretz claimed today that Dayan will hold secret talks with an Egyptian delegation while the Cairo conference is underway. The paper said those plans were approved by Cabinet members in consultations last night with Begin and that Begin’s trip to the U.S. was approved at the same time.
Yediot Achronot said Begin was taking maps to Washington indicating the lines to which Israel was prepared to withdraw in the occupied territories and the areas where Israel’s presence would be maintained. According to that report, Israel will be ready to evacuate almost all of Sinai to a point east of EI Arish but would retain its presence at Sharm el-Sheikh and the Rafah salient. Yediot said Israel’s plans for the West Bank–Samaria and Judaea–called for local autonomy with a certain affiliation to Jordan while Israel retained overall military control of the territory.
NOTES FATEFUL HISTORICAL PERIOD
Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, addressing a local editors’ luncheon in Jerusalem today, said that Carter will be pleased with what Begin has to tell him. He said the Premier was going to Washington with specific “thoughts, advice and proposals.” He noted that “we are at a fateful historical period.” Weizman hinted that some compromises were in the wind when he observed that “doves and hawks are all birds, their only difference is that they fly at different speeds. One can now say that we (hawks) decreased our speed.”
Weizman said he saw a number of possible security guarantees in case of a settlement, including a U.S. military presence. He said Israel was prepared to take security risks, but could not afford to take inordinate risks. He reminded his audience that in the euphoria over the current peace initiative, it should be remembered that at the presently only one Arab country was willing to sit and talk about peace.
Dayan, addressing a forum on political and social questions in Tel Aviv last night, said that Israel must now come to grips with the question of its future borders and peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. He said there was no certainty that an agreement would be reached with Egypt, but nevertheless, by going to the Cairo conference, Israel reached the point where it would have to make concrete proposals. He said the proposals Israel makes must also be acceptable to the U.S.
But Dayan opposed territorial compromises on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. “No authorized Arab will be ready to sign any map which gives a part of these lands to Israel, even if it is a remote village, ” he said. “They will sign a cease-fire line, but no one will say of his own free will, ‘I agree that this section belongs to the Jewish State.”
Dayan also said that Syria appeared not to want to make peace with Israel, that recent developments proved that the U.S. and the Soviet Union cannot cooperate over the Middle East and that he would “prefer that Israel receives much less money from the U.S. so that Washington would respect the Jewish State more than it does.”
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.
