83 Statement in the Knesset by Prime Minister Begin on the Cairo conference- 28 November 1977

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Knesset,

Yesterday evening, in a happy and fortunate hour, two ambassadors met, shook hands and gave each other the greeting of peace: One, the Ambassador of Egypt to the United Nations Organization, and the second, the Ambassador of Israel to the U.N. The first handed the second a letter, and this was its content:

The Government decided to accept this initiative. This morning I consulted the Foreign Minister by telephone, and we agreed that the representatives of Israel to the Cairo talks should be Dr. Eli Ben-Elissar, Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office, and Dr. Meir Rosenne, legal adviser of the Foreign Ministry. Of course, if it transpires in the course of the discussions that it is necessary to expand our delegation, we shall do so.

I signed the letter of reply to Dr. Ghali. Its contents will be telegraphed immediately to our Ambassador, Haim Herzog, who will hand over our reply to the Egyptian Ambassador to the U.N., Mr. Megid.

Mr. Speaker,

Thus will open the direct negotiations for the preparation of the Geneva Conference, negotiations we have always wanted, face to face, between ourselves and our neighbors, for the sake of establishing true peace in the area. This exchange of letters is a direct expression of the meeting that took place a week ago in Jerusalem, and I ask your permission, Mr. Speaker, to tell the Knesset how the hour for the holding of that meeting came.

On the ninth of November 1977, the Egyptian President, Mr. Sadat, addressed the Egyptian People's Assembly, which is the Egyptian parliament, and said, inter alia, the following: "I state in all seriousness that I am prepared to go to the end of the world - and Israel will be surprised to hear me tell you that I am ready to go to their home, to the Knesset itself, to argue with them. Members of the National Council, we have no time to waste."

These words were published on the tenth of November, and on the same day I issued the following announcement in the name of the Government of Israel:

"If this is no figure of speech, and President Sadat is really prepared to come to the Knesset in Jerusalem, we welcome this readiness. I must recall that, when I took up my post, I announced that I would be ready to meet the President of Egypt at any place, including Cairo, to negotiate with him on the establishment of true peace in the Middle East." I further stated: "Israel rejects in advance, without reserve, President Sadat's conditions, namely, withdrawal to the lines of 4 June 1967 and the establishment of a so-called Palestinian state. These conditions are a danger to the very existence of the State of Israel. But President Sadat will be able to express this position of his at the Geneva Conference, as we shall be able to present to it our positions. Let no party transform its positions into prior conditions for participation in the Peace Conference.

I had two further opportunities to hold out my hand to President Sadat and invite him to come to our country, to Jerusalem On the 11th of November I made a speech - true, it was in English, but it was a direct appeal to the Egyptian people. I said to our neighbors, inter alia: "You should know that back we came to the land of our fathers, that it is we who liberated this country from British rule, and we established our independence in our land, for all generations to come. Let us say one to another, and let it be a silent oath by both peoples of Egypt and Israel: No more wars, no more bloodshed, and no more threats. We can help each other. We can make the lives of our nations better, easier, happier. Your President said, two days ago, that he will be ready to come to Jerusalem, to our parliament - the Knesset - in order to prevent one Egyptian soldier from being wounded. It is a good statement. I have already welcomed it, and it will be a pleasure to welcome and receive your President with the traditional hospitality you and we have inherited from our common father, Abraham."

I have further public opportunities of sending invitations to President Sadat to come to us. During that week it transpired, from information I received through the United States Embassy, that President Sadat expected a written and official invitation from me. I did not hesitate for a moment, I wrote the invitation, and we sent it to Cairo through the American Embassy. And thus I concluded my written invitation: "Our legislature, the Government and the people will welcome you with honor and cordiality."

On the next day, I was given a statement, confidential at the time, that President Sadat wanted to come to us at the end of the Sabbath. And from Cairo the question came to me at what time he should and could come in order that the Sabbath should not be desecrated. My reply was: between half-past-seven and eight in the evening. It should be known, Mr. Speaker, that our state is the Jewish state, and it will honour the Sabbath in the eyes of the whole world, and therefore President Sadat, too, understood that if he wanted to come to us at the ending of the Sabbath, the time must be calculated so that we should not desecrate the Sabbath in order to prepare the meeting.

I must add, Mr. Speaker, that on last Sabbath eve a personal letter to me from President Carter reached the U.S. Embassy, but the President of the United States instructed the Ambassador not to bring it to me until the end of the Sabbath, and he told the American Ambassador expressly not to bring this letter, this important, friendly letter before the ending of the Sabbath. Mr. Speaker, we respect the Muslim day of rest, which is Friday, and the Christian day of rest, which is Sunday. We ask all nations, both near and far, to respect the Sabbath. But they will respect it if we respect it.

(Interruption.) I did not hear the interruption, but no Sabbath was desecrated in connection with his arrival. I should ask, that when you speak of one of the greatest values of the Jewish people and humanity, not to permit yourselves so-called ironies. You should listen seriously, with respect.

Mr. Speaker,

Deeply moved, I read again those eternal verses, "Observe the Sabbath day and sanctify it as the Lord thy God has commanded. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord thy God. Thou shalt do no labour, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy servant and thy maidservant, and thy ox and thy ass, and all thy cattle, and the stranger within thy gates, so that thy servant and thy maidservant shall rest like thee. And remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord thy God brought thee out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to observe the Sabbath day." One of the greatest ideas in the history of mankind from the social and moral point of view: so that the slave should rest, and the poor man, and not only the rich man, who can rest every day in the week. And now let it be known that we shall honour our Sabbath in this way and ask representatives of all the nations to respect it.

The President of Egypt arrived on the outgoing of the Sabbath. We invited him to come to the Knesset to deliver his address to us, and he stood on this rostrum and said all that he wanted to say. Not only did we not know a single word of the content of his speech, we did not ask to know. We said in advance that his demands for complete withdrawal to the lines of 4 June 1967 and the establishment of a so-called Palestinian state are not acceptable. But he is entitled to come and make them in the Knesset and, through it, to the world.

On the following day we enabled him to meet all the parties in our parliament, including the Opposition parties, including the Communist Party. He told them all he wanted to say, and they answered him as they wished.

Today, too, Mr. Speaker, we shall praise and honour the decision of the Egyptian President and the courage he showed in coming to us to the Knesset. I have looked for precedents in history as we know it in which the leader of a country in a state of war with another country came to that state and spoke to it as President Sadat spoke to us. I have found none. There have been meetings of heads of state between whom there was no peace. But we have four wars behind us, thousands of casualties in our hearts. There is an abyss between us. Barbed-wire fences have separated one nation from another for 29 whole years, and therefore I have not yet found any similar event.

But there is no precedent either to the way we welcomed the President of Egypt. I have not found that any nation with which another nation is in a state of war has welcomed the leader of that nation with honour, with cordiality, with affection - the nation, the legislature, the Government.

These were two great days for Israel. The gesture of his coming was responded to by the gesture of his reception. And I can say, Mr. Speaker, all honour to Israeli democracy - in its working, in the way it shows itself towards an enemy - I hope we can soon say a former enemy - is an example to other nations.

The things that were said in public, whether from this rostrum, or in the Knesset building or on the television screens, are known to all and there is no need to repeat them. But there were also personal conversations between President Sadat and myself, between members of the Egyptian delegation and members of the Israeli delegation. Mr. Speaker, atmosphere is not decisive, but it is important, and I want to tell the House that the atmosphere in which our private conversations were conducted was warm, cordial, human. The talks were conducted with candor. Each side expressed its attitude. No side tried to find favor in the eyes of the other side by denying its positions. How did President Sadat say it? "I ask you to put all your cards on the table" - and thus we spoke, each to his rival, each to his neighbor, with sincerity. And all our talks ended with the same silent mutual declaration: "No more wars, no more bloodshed, no more threats."

This time we explained to each other - and we understood it, and we shall explain it to anyone who wishes to hear what is the meaning of the concept "without prior conditions." This concept does not say that either of the sides has no position. It does not say that there are no differences of opinion between the parties. On the contrary, we said to each other that there are differences of opinion between us in regard to the content of the peace treaties, in regard to the conditions for true peace in the Middle East. But no party stipulates, or will stipulate in the future, that the holding of peace talks is conditional on the other side accepting its position in advance - neither they nor we. This is the meaning of the concept "without prior conditions" as we stated on the establishment of the second national unity government, by amending one of the paragraphs of that Government's basic principles. And now this concept is plain to all.

There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that the greatest achievement at the talks in Jerusalem is the fact that we really said seriously each to other, "No more war." Of course, there are also some who like to cast doubt on everything. Good luck to them. I want to tell the Israeli legislature that we accepted this statement by the President of Egypt in all seriousness. Of course, there never was any doubt as to the sincerity of our statement. I demonstrated from this rostrum that we wanted peace on the renewal of our independence, in the day of our resurgence. And ever since then, until this very day, we have held out our hands for peace. And today there is a situation in which both countries, both Governments, have promised and undertaken, in the hearing of all the nations, that they will never again take up arms against each other. There are differences of opinion between us - we shall bring them to negotiation. This is the most important mutual statement and, as you have noticed, President Sadat also confirmed it when he spoke to his own Parliament.

Mr. Speaker,

The President of Egypt made a speech before the People's Assembly in Cairo. There is a part in this speech which we welcomed in Jerusalem and we continue to welcome it now, from Jerusalem. But there is also a part which is not acceptable to us, and if I decided to go into a detailed polemic with this speech, I would go into the history of the Yom Kippur War, its beginning and its conclusion. And I would say again, on behalf of 113 members of this Knesset, at least, that we do not accept either the demand for total withdrawal to the 4 June 1967 lines, or the demand for the establishment of so-called Palestinian state, or the demand for the re-partition of Jerusalem.

But today, Mr. Speaker, I have made up my mind to eschew polemic in detail; the main thing is the future. And no matter how it was said, our position is known, as I have read out the documents that were published in the name of the Government before the President of Egypt arrived in Jerusalem. The main thing, as I said, is the future, and we shall work in the future for the holding of peace talks for the establishment of peace.

We want the peace to be between ourselves and all our neighbours. And again: let these things be heard in Damascus and in Amman, in Beirut and in Baghdad, and in all the Arab capitals from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. We do not want to drive any wedge between the Arab countries, and we did not offer President Sadat, when he was in Jerusalem, a separate peace treaty with Egypt. We want peace on all sectors, and on all borders, and with all our neighbours.

And although there is a storm today in part of the Arab world - there are some members of that organization than which none baser has arisen in the history of mankind, except for the Nazi organizations, who today threaten the life of President Sadat - although this storm is raging, we find it necessary and possible, it is our right and our duty, to call upon President Assad to decide on the opening of peace talks with representatives of Israel, whether in Jerusalem or in Damascus, or in Geneva, or anywhere else, as he may propose. Because we want peace with Syria, we want no more injuries to our children, and we do not want Syrian children to be injured anymore.

And we want peace with King Hussein so that we may be able to build our lives together, and to think how to open a new era for this country. And it goes without saying, we want, no less, to establish permanent peace with Lebanon. The border between Lebanon and Israel was for years the quietist of our borders - recently it has not been so. And we were also bound - and we shall continue to be bound - to protect the Christian minority, so that it should not be wiped out by vile men. We propose to all of them that they should send delegations...

(Interjection: The Palestinian people as well?)

Mr. Wilner, listen to me now, please. I am talking to you as one Jew to another. Listen and don't interrupt. I speak Hebrew. That word you used is not Hebrew, it is jargon. When the first British High Commissioner was here and it was necessary to decide what name for the country could be stamped on the coins - those with a hole in them -then in English, of course, they engraved "Palestine" - there was no doubt: in English the name of the country was Palestine, and in Arabic, "Filastin" - there is no doubt about it, that is the name of the country in Arabic. But it had to be decided how it should be in Hebrew, and they said: Of course, "Eretz Yisrael." That has always been the name of the country, since days of old, in all generations. But there were protests: How can we say "Eretz Yisrael" so expressly? And then, that British High Commissioner found a compromise. He would write "Palestina", which is not Hebrew at all, but he would add in parentheses, "Aleph Yud" - so the Jews read it "Eretz Yisrael" - and those who did not understand so well read "Palestina (Ai)". And now do you know the origin of this word? And I speak Hebrew, my dear sir, not Sovietish.

(Interjection: Is there a Palestinian people or not?)

There is an Arab people.

(Interjection: A Palestinian people?)

I have already told you: I speak Hebrew, not Sovietish. When you are in Moscow you can speak in your own language.

Mr. Speaker.

We have set foot on the road to the establishment of peace. I ask the House to give its blessing for this road on which we are going to go. And I have an appeal to all the members of the Knesset, without distinction between most of the parties. Dear friends, honoured rivals, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Knesset: this is an important hour for our people. And since, as you have noticed, I have not wanted, ever since we received the news about the possibility of President Sadat coming to our country, to exaggerate, I will not use any other adjective: enough if we say "an important hour." There, is no need to compete in "concessionism." We are not in exile, but in our homeland, not in the ghetto, but in our sovereign state. It is not fitting that there should be competition as to who is a more peace-loving Jew and who is a less peace-loving Jew. The truth is that we all want peace with all our hearts and all our souls. We want peace, we pray for it and long for it, and we also hope to bring it about. True we have straightened our backs in the Land of Israel. We shall not grow arrogant, but we shall not bow our heads either. We shall insist on our people's rights, on its security and peace, and with God's help we shall succeed in bringing true peace to our people and our neighbours, because peace is necessary to us and also to them.

Mr. Speaker,

Before I parted with the President of Egypt in front of the aircraft, I said to him: "Mr. President, we shall make peace." And he answered me: "I am sure of it." Later, I saw a famous weekly with pictures on two sides: President Sadat holds his one-year-old grandson in his arms and, on the other side, I hold my two granddaughters. Let the whole world look at these children on the left and on the right. This is humanity, this is the consolation, this is the light of our eyes - and there is no difference between Jews and Arabs, between Israeli and Egyptian. For the sake of our grandchildren, and for the sake of all the children of Israel, and all the children of Egypt, let us make peace.