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1949-1976: Disengagement and Geneva

Bar-On: Ken Stein Interviews With Hanan Bar-On, Jerusalem, Israel

In the 1975-1979 period, Hanan Bar-On served in the Israeli 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 viewpoint, he recalls how unpredictable Zbigniew Brzezinski behaved toward the Israelis, how flexible Moshe Dayan was in seeking compromises, and how the Leeds Castle foreign minister talks in England 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 (1975), the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty (1979).

Interviews|November 12, 1992, and July 9, 1993

El-Gamasy: Ken Stein Interview with General Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, Cairo, Egypt

General Ghani el-Gamasy served as Egypt’s chief of staff during the October 1973 war, executed Egypt’s limited success across the Suez Canal, and negotiated with an Israeli counterpart, General Aharon Yariv, the details of the Kissinger-choreographed Kilometer 101 talks, which 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.” Gamasy to Yariv, “We (the Egyptians) are finished with the Palestinians.”

Interviews|November 10, 1992

Sasson: Ken Stein Interview With Ambassador Moshe Sasson, Jerusalem, Israel

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.

Interviews|August 6, 1992

Kidron: Ken Stein Interview With Mordechai Kidron, Jerusalem, Israel 

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.”

Interviews|August 5, 1992

Pattir: Interviews with Dan Pattir, Media Adviser to Prime Ministers Rabin and Begin, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel

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.

Interviews|August 1992

Saunders: Ken Stein Interview With Dr. Harold Saunders, Washington, D.C.

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.

Interviews|May 12, 1992

Yariv: Ken Stein Interview With Major General Aharon Yariv, Tel Aviv University

As the October 1973 war 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 clobber the Third Army, which Israel 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 chief of 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 Israeli-Egyptian public negotiations since the late 1940s. The talks were collusively halted by U.S. 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 U.S.S.R., though they were co-chairs of the conference, as the U.S. choreographed the postwar diplomacy extending over the next six years into the Carter administration. The Yariv-al-Gamasy negotiations became the basis for the January 1974 Israel-Egyptian Disengagement Agreement.

Interviews|March 26, 1992

Rafael: Ken Stein Interview with Ambassador Gideon Rafael, Jerusalem, Israel

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.

Interviews|March 25, 1992

Gazit: Ken Stein Interview With Mordechai Gazit, Jerusalem, Israel

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.

Interviews|March 22, 1992

Dinitz: Ken Stein Interview With Simcha Dinitz, Jerusalem, Israel

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.

Interviews|March 20, 1992

Sisco: Ken Stein Interview With Joseph Sisco, Washington, D.C.

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.

Interviews|February 27, 1992
Golan Heights after May 1974 Israeli Syrian Separation of Forces agreement

Map of Golan Heights After Israeli-Syrian Separation of Forces Agreement, May 1974

In the last days of the June 1967 War Israel secured a portion of the Syrian Golan Heights, estimated at 1300 sq km or 500 sq mi; Israel forces sit some 40 miles, 60km from Damascus. Before the June War, Israeli villages and populations in the valley were fired upon by Syrian forces from the Heights. In addition to being an important catchment for Jordan River waters which helps supply Israel’s water needs, the heights contain not fully explored hydrocarbon sources. In the northern Heights is Mt. Hermon which has strategic value for observing military movements into southern Lebanon and to Damascus.

Maps|May 1974

Map of Israeli-Egyptian Separation of Forces Agreement, January 1974

For Sadat, who had gone to war against Israel three months earlier, securing a military disengagement agreement was important. In addition, diplomatically engaging the US to secure the agreement meant entrenching Washington as a friend of Egypt. The US embraced the opportunity to quell tensions between Israel and Egypt, while squiring Cairo away from decades of Moscow’s embrace. Israel had its POWs returned and slowly tested Sadat’s broader intentions toward Jerusalem.

Maps|January 1974
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