Transcripts, Interviews and Conference Proceedings on Arab-Israeli Negotiations of the 1970s

Tamir was a 35 year veteran of the Israeli Army, attending all Egyptian-Israeli negotiations as a strategic planner. He stated that he thought the 1973 War could have been averted if Golda Meir had responded to Sadat's pre-war overtures. He credits Henry Kissinger's negotiating successes of the post 1973 war period as laying the basis for the successful 1978 and 1979 Egyptian-Israeli agreements.

View the full article at the Baker Institute: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2013-08/import/BI-pub-USIPPolicyReport-0212.pdf

October 6, 2023, marks the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the October 1973 War. Six months prior, Egyptian President Sadat sent his national security adviser to meet with Secretary of State Kissinger to determine whether the US would engage Egypt and Israel in serious mediation for a Sinai agreement, or a series of them, all focused on Israeli withdrawal and gradual acceptance of Israel. Kissinger did not take Sadat’s overtures seriously. Would have American action then avoided the October 1973 War? All informed analyses says, ‘no.’

Hamilton Jordan, Carter's chief political adviser, warned the president to halt the administration's anti-Israeli actions. Nonetheless, they continued to diminish Carter's support among American Jews through the 1980 re-election campaign.

Israeli and Egyptian representatives meet secretly in Morocco to test intentions for direct talks between their leaders, with details of the meetings unknown to the United States.

The Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, March-17-18, 1981, Reprinted with permission. Participants included researchers, academics, politicians, and business people.

As an MA student, Brumberg's thesis cogently lays out how and why President Jimmy Carter, a candidate without any significant foreign policy experience chose to embrace the unexpected objective of seeking a comprehensive Middle East peace. Prompting Carter’s imperative was the drive provided by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Adviser. Brzezinski’s motivation emerged from wanting to satisfy a Saudi imperative to find a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and thereby reduce the chances of another oil price spike or oil price embargo. Brzezinski believed that a stable oil order would benefit Carter’s re-election chances. Brzezinski also wanted to severely reduce the influence of the American Jewish community’s influence on the making of Middle East foreign policy. He wanted to demonstrate to the Saudis that he could accomplish that objective. In the end oil prices were higher in November 1980.

Jimmy Carter, "The US- Iran relationship, the Shah's downfall, Khomeyni's rise to power, and the Hostage Crisis," an Emory class presentation, Atlanta, Georgia, March 24, 1985, recorded and transcribed with permission.

Peter Bass's Princeton University Senior thesis is the most comprehensive work on a critical topic that befuddled and dominated Carter's entire presidency. Historical context evolves from tepid Jewish support for Carter in the 1976 campaign through ever widening gaps between his administration, Israel and the Jewish community. Carter wanted Middle East policy his way as shaped by Brzezinski. All Israeli leaders chafed at being told what to do, and frequently in public about territorial compromises "they had to make." American Jews who voted reluctantly for him in 1976, did not do so in the 1980. Carter carried that sting with him for the rest of his life. Bass's work is superb; thanks are given to him for giving us permission to provide his thesis here.

Hermann Eilts played a pivotal role in representing the U.S. to Egypt and vice versa in the vital 1973-1980 period when Egypt embraced Washington and turned away from Moscow, and made peace with Israel. Eilts knew Egyptian President Sadat as well as any American official in the period. He provides rich detail and vivid insights into Sadat's often mercurial decision-making.

Ambassador Joseph Sisco was an integral member of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's team that put together three military disengagement agreements after the October 1973 War. Sisco has high praise for Sadat's wisdom and courage and insight in working with Kissinger to turn Egypt away from Moscow and into agreements with Israel.

Sam Lewis was US Ambassador in Israel when Menachem Begin was Prime Minister; his influence was most significant in keeping a taught and fraught Israeli - US relationship from unravelling in the face of the Carter administration's negative outlook toward Israel, Menachem Begin's immovable ideologies in the period, and from the weight of Anwar Sadat's powerful motivations to reach an agreement with Israel where Sinai would return to Egyptian sovereignty. Lewis's recollections and conclusions are enormously incisive.

Dinitz focuses on mostly the 1973 October War period, the controversy of delay in the resupply of American military materials to Israel, his relationship with Kissinger and how the US Secretary of State maneuvered the Soviet Union out of postwar diplomacy. He notes that elements of the Israeli army leadership strongly wanted to embarrass Sadat after the war by harming his Israeli surrounded Egyptian Third Army. In the end Israel's political leadership allowed diplomacy to unfold. Dinitz has great praise for Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat.

Mordechai Gazit served as Director General in Prime Minister Golda Meir's office from March 1973 to her resignation in April 1974. He observed the outbreak of the October 1973 War and Henry Kissinger's diplomatic choreography as it unfolded thereafter. Gazit suggests that he was the source of Israeli and Egyptian generals to negotiate face to face at the end of the war near Kilometer 101.

A life-long Israeli civil servant, Epi Evron was deeply engaged with Kissinger, Sadat, Meir, Rabin, Carter, Begin and others, as Egyptian-Israeli negotiations unfolded in the 1970s. One will find crisp in his interview insightful assessments of personalities, decision-making processes, and colorful vignettes.

Gideon Rafael’s contributions to Israeli diplomacy spanned four decades. His recollections are from the 1930s, the end of the 1947-1949 war, unfolding events before the June 1967 war, and his clear criticisms of his government's insufficient response to Sadat’s negotiating overtures to Israel prior to the 1973 War. His life long conclusion: he had hoped that diplomacy would have worked better than it actually did.

As the October 1973 came to an end, Israeli and Egyptian leaders decided that respective generals from both sides should disentangle the war's realities. Israel was keen to have her POWs returned and Egypt did not want to see Israel clober the Egyptian Third Army that it had surrounded in the second week of the war. General Yariv who had been head of military intelligence in earlier years recalls in detail his cordial meetings with the Egyptian Chiefof Staff, General Mohamad al-Gamasy. Yariv's recollections pair almost identically to the ones given by others who participated in the talks or were on the Kissinger negotiating team at the time. These negotiations came to be known as the Kilometer 101 talks; they were the first direct Israel-Egyptian public negotiations since the late 1940s. The talks were collusived halted by US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, as agreed upon with Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat. What followed was the December 1973 Geneva Middle East Peace conference. It was a public display and intentionally a truncated meeting, with no substance discussed. Kissinger sidelined the USSR, though they were co-chairman of the conference as the US choreographed the post war diplomacy extending over the next six years into the Carter administration. The Yariv- al-Gamasy negotiations became the core basis for the January 1974 Israel-Egyptian - Disengagement Agreement.

From 1961 until the early 1980s, Harold Saunders was a key US State Department bureaucrat, an enormously capable word-smith. He had his hand in drafting the 1974-1975 ARab-Israeli Disengagement Agreements, Camp David Accords and E-I Treaty. His memory for detail enabled consequential decision-makers to understand the historical context of events and ideas such as 'land for peace,' 'territorial integrity,' 'legitimate rights,' and a myriad of diplomatic promises made spanning multiple presidencies.

In the 1970s, US State Department Ambassador Michael Sterner was privy to Sadat's preference for step-by-step diplomacy PRIOR to the 1973 October War. He is critical of the Carter administration for being too satisfied with only a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli Agreement.

Ken Stein Interview with Peter Rodman, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1992 (June 10, 1992) (Permission to publish this interview granted by Peter Rodman, June 1992) Peter Rodman Member of United States National Security Council Staff and Special Assistant to Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, August 1969 to January 1977; staff member on virtually all of […]

Ken Stein Interview with Ambassador Roy Atherton, Washington, D.C., July 16, 1992 (16 July 1992) Alfred Roy Atherton, Jr., participated in U.S-Soviet Middle East negotiations and formulation of Rogers Plan, 1969; Kissinger-Ismail secret meeting in Paris, 1973; mission to Moscow in October 1973 to negotiate UNSC 338; Kissinger Middle East shuttle diplomacy team, 1973-1975;  Assistant […]

From 1974 – 1981, Dan Pattir served as advisor on media and public affairs for Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin. Prior to working for two Prime Ministers, he Pattir worked in the Israeli media, and here he recalls in detail how Kissinger maneuvered the Geneva 1973 conference to keep the Soviets out of decision-making. Likewise he was intimate with the negotiating details and personal relationships that unfolded between Egypt and Israel in that period, especially 1977-1979 including his rendition of the September 1978 Camp David negotiations. Pattir concluded that the Carter administration, no matter how long it earnestly tried, it failed to grasp that neither Egypt nor Israel, were going to allow other Arab states or the Palestinian issue to interfere with their eagerly sought mutually beneficial bilateral agreement, before, during or after Camp David.

Mordechai Kidron served in the Israeli Foreign Ministry during and after the October 1973 War. He touched on the war, its aftermath and the unfolding of the Sinai I - Egyptian-Israeli military negotiations and short military talks that took place after the war. He thought that the December 1973 Geneva conference was going to be a long process, not knowing that the conference was stage managed by Kissinger, Sadat, and Meir. Meir was deeply emotional about having Israeli POW's returned. He notes that Foreign Minister Abba Eban, whom he called an optimist … "was not really altogether founded in reality.”

Moshe Sasson spanned four decades in his service to Israel, from the Haganah's Arab Department of Intelligence in the 1940s to being Israel's Ambassador to Egypt in the 1980s. He recollects analytically and in detail his conversations with Arab leaders at Lausanne as well as personal impressions of Moshe Dayan and Anwar Sadat. A tour de force.

(29 October 1992) After learning Hebrew, David Korn rose to become chief of the political section while at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv (1968 to mid-1971). Later, he was office director for northern Arab affairs (1972 to 1975), policy planning in 1977, officer director for Arab-Israeli affairs (1978-1981).  In the interview, David Korn shared […]

Nabil Shaath was a close adviser to Arafat particularly in the tumultuous 1998-1993 period when the PLO was buffeted by events and bad choices. Shaath praised Secretary Baker, President Bush and Yitzhak Rabin, and was pleased that Palestinians were participating in the Madrid Conference. He hoped for an end to the conflict with Israel in 1992, based on land for peace but held out for the right of Palestinian return for that to happen. In 2023 he is a foreign policy adviser to Mahmoud Abbas.

Ashraf Ghorbal represented Egypt to the US for four years from 1968 to 1972 until Egypt restored diplomatic relations with the US in the wake of the October War. Ghorbal was Sadat's Ambassador in Washington for 11 years until 1984. He credits Sadat with foresight in setting out and fulfilling his diplomatic objectives; breaking from the USSR, aligning Cairo with the US, harnessing US diplomacy under Kissinger and Carter to secure Sinai's return to Egyptian sovereignty, and even if that meant signing agreements and recognizing Israel.

General Gemasy served as Egypt's Chief of Staff during the October 1973 War, executed Egypt's limited success across the Canal, and negotiated with his Israeli counterpart, General Aharon Yariv the details of the Kissinger choreographed Kilometer 101 Talks that led to the January 1974 Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement. Gamasy was surprised when Sadat told him at Aswan then, "Egypt was making peace with the United States and not with Israel." Gemasy to Yariv, "we (the Egyptians) are finished with the Palestinians."

Tahsin Bashir served as spokesman for Egypt and for the Arab League in many capacities from 1963 to 1978. He knew Anwar Sadat intimately, revealing that Sadat kept his own counsel using others to test political and diplomatic options. His long term goal was to reorient Egypt away from Moscow and obtain Sinai's return. Sadat cleverly managed others including Kissinger, Carter, and his advisors.

Yossi Ben-Aharon was the Director General of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's office from 1988 to 1992. He was intimately involved in Israeli-US negotiations that eventually saw a highly reluctant Israeli prime minister attend the October-November 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace conference. Ben-Aharon's evaluations of US Secretary of State Baker, his assistant, Dennis Ross, and President George Bush I are insightful.

In the 1975-1979 period, Hanan Bar-On served in Israel's embassy in Washington and then for seven years as Director General of the Foreign Ministry. His insights highlight the building strain that evolved between Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin. From an Israeli view point, he recalls how unpredictable Zbigniew Brzezinski behaved toward the Israelis, how flexible Moshe Dayan was in seeking compromises, and how the Leeds Castle, England Foreign Minister's talks in July 1978, established the contours for the successful Camp David negotiations two months later. He sheds important light on the context of the four Egyptian-Israeli agreements: Sinai I (1974), Sinai II Disengagement (1975), the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty (1979).

As a long time confidant of Menachem Begin and involved in the Herut Party, Eliyahu Ben-Elissar was Israel’s first Ambassador to Egypt. He was a staunch supporter of keeping the area of the West Bank – Judea and Samaria under Israeli control. Later he became Israel’s ambassador to France and then the United States.

Omar Sirry provides intimate details of the diplomatic aftermath of the October 1973 War, the Kilometer 101 talks, Kissinger's choreography of the December 1973 Middle East Peace Conference, and admiration for Sadat as the 'modern Egyptian Pharaoh' who was not ever politically passive but took repeated initiatives for Egypt's benefit.

Hafez Ismail was a close adviser of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Ismail carried out secret negotiations with Henry Kissinger before the 1973 war to see if the US would quietly start talks with the Israelis. Kissinger said no. Ismail provides notable insights into Sadat's sophisticated decision-making.

Jordanian Prime Minister Zaid Rifai lucidly explains Jordan's role (inclusion and exclusion) in regional politics from prior to the 1973 October War to the late 1980s. His insights of Kissinger's diplomacy and Arafat's unfounded fear of being absorbed by Jordan are as worthy as they are insightful.

From the vantage points of Amman and Damascus in the 1970s and 1980s, Theros heard the sharp political opinions deeply felt about the United States, and the profound anger voiced by Arafat, Jordan's King Hussein and Syria's President Assad for each other.

Serving as Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1976-1977, he recounts Rumanian overtures to Rabin for a visit to gauge interest in another agreement with Egypt; he estimates that Rabin and Begin both took strategic considerations in hand in negotiating considerations; he is highly critical of Carter's political naivete.

For years, Naftali Lau-Lavie worked closely with Moshe Dayan. His remarks here focus on Dayan as Menachem Begin's Foreign Minister (1977-1979). He provides sumptuous detail on Dayan's thinking and interactions with the Carter administration as it tried to force a Palestinian/PLO state on Israel in seeking a comprehensive Middle East peace.

Mustafa Khalil served as the primary Egyptian negotiator in tying up the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, Sep1978-March 1979. Though most of the talks took place in Washington, the final excruciating details were negotiated in difficult exchanges in Jerusalem between Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin in the week before the March 26, 1979 treaty signing.

From 1970 to 1984, Khaddam served as Syria's Foreign Minister, and later Syria's decision-maker for its actions in Lebanon. He recounts Syrian anger toward Egyptian President Sadat's slow but continuous bilateral engagement and recognition of Israel. He recalls how Syria's President Assad, after a four hour meeting, refused Henry Kissinger's invitation to attend the 1973 Geneva Conference, not wanting to sanction the closeness Sadat was establishing with Israel and with Washington. These were the same reasons why Syria refused President Carter's invitation to attend a similar Middle East peace Conference in 1977. Khaddam said, "We were shocked by Sadat's actions."

“Camp David Negotiations,” in Jimmy Carter: Foreign Policy and Post-Presidential Years, Herbert D. Rosenbaum and Alexej Ugrinsky (eds.) Hofstra University Conference, Greenwood Press, 1994, pp. 149–187. Scroll to the end for detailed biographies of the five speakers. Discussants Hermann F. Eilts, Samuel W. Lewis, William B. Quandt, Harold H. Saunders, Daniel C. Kurtzer and Kenneth […]

With a keen memory to detail, Nicholas Veliotes engaged an array of American and Middle Eastern political leaders. This interview is laced with charming and enthusiastic candor as he served in American diplomatic positions from 1973-1986 in Tel Aviv, Washington, Amman, and Cairo. He was present when sensitive US policies were debated and operationalized. His assessments of Kissinger, Sadat, Meir, Nixon, King Hussein, Brzezinski, Carter, Vance, and a whole panoply of Israeli officials bubble with content; the vignettes he shares about Nixon and Brzezinski are priceless. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Veliotes along with Morris Draper, Hermann Eilts, American Consul Generals in Jerusalem and other US officials failed in repeated attempts to secure PLO leader Yasir Arafat’s participation in the diplomatic process.

Recounting events at the Egyptian-Israeli-American negotiations, a dozen (American, Israeli, and Egyptian participants recollected those thirteen days of negotiations. Negotiators from both sides agreed that they pursued success through 'constructive ambiguity' some at high levels so the respective sides could agree, for example in using the term 'modalities' to describe a future element that could not be defined in a more tangible way. President Carter and Israel's Attorney General at the time of Camp David disagreed at the conference with what Prime Minister Begin promised on the duration of a settlement moratorium. (p34). William Quandt the NSC official acknowledged that there was no written record of a a Begin promise for three months; Carter claimed the promise was in his diary notes, but others who saw Carter's diary said no such promise was made or was in Carter's notes.

As a political activist, Weiss recollects with keen candor the incidents in 1978-1980 where he personally confronted President Jimmy Carter for what he viewed as his definitive anti-Israeli comments and actions.

As a Democratic Party operative, Mark Siegel astutely helped Jimmy Carter win the 1976 election. He assisted in delegate selection, on the platform committee, and kept Eugene MaCarthy’s name off the New York state ballot. In the White House, as the administration’s liaison to the Jewish community, he abruptly resigned for being lied to by the administration. He explains Brzezinski/Carter disappointment with Sadat’s historic 1977 trip to Jerusalem because it channeled Arab-Israeli negotiations into a bi-lateral pathway. With that, the Brzezinski/Carter fear was realized. Any hope of Palestinian self-determination and Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank/Gaza Strip would be endlessly postponed in favor of Egyptian-Israeli national interests. He is frank in his descriptions and epititude of those who worked in the Carter White House.

Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan served as Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States from 1983-2006. From 2005 to 2015 he head the country's National Security Council. He offers a scathing attack on Yasir Arafat's failure to embrace multiple negotiating overtures proposed by Presidents Carter and Reagan. Additionally, he expresses his anger at the present Palestinian leadership for criticising the UAE's recognition of Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords

January 6, 2025 CIE President Ken Stein addressed “Jimmy Carter’s Middle East Legacies” during a webinar hosted by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East in cooperation with the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa on January 6, 2025. Dr. Stein took audience questions from moderator Asaf Romirowsky, the executive director […]

January 6, 2025 CIE President Ken Stein is interviewed about Jimmy Carter by Foundation for Defense of Democracies Executive Director Jonathan Schanzer on the “FDD Morning Brief” on January 6, 2025. Jonathan Schanzer: It’s now time for my conversation with Professor Ken Stein. I’m proud to call Ken a friend and a mentor, although if […]

As Middle East historian, Ken Stein discusses in intimate detail the 1977-1979 Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. He touches on the fall of the Shah of Iran, his work of the Carter Center, Carter’s growing negative views toward Israel, his embrace of Hamas, and the impact of Carter's controversial anti-Israeli 2006 book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."

Ken Stein discusses Jimmy Carter's Camp David success with WSB radio's Scott Slade in an interview that aired shortly before Carter's state funeral.