Nation: A Sudden Vision of Peace

(8 of 10)

It was only on the final Saturday that the possibility of a breakthrough began to take shape. While Begin observed the Sabbath, Carter met with Sadat for 2½ hours. Once sundown came, Carter and Begin met for 4½ hours. By that time their negotiators had narrowed success or failure for the summit to just two issues: the Palestinians and the Israeli Sinai settlements.

All day Sunday, the U.S. pressed hard on both. There was no dramatic turning point on the Palestinians, just "a lot of fine tuning and adjusting so all the jigsaw pieces would finally fit," said one U.S. official. Alternative proposals on language went back and forth for approval, options were accepted and rejected, but by mid-afternoon the compromise formula letting the Palestinians participate in the negotiations and have a say in the final status of Gaza and the West Bank had been adopted.

At 3 p.m. they turned to the Sinai settlements, and that took 2½ hours, beginning with a brief Carter-Begin meeting, followed by a Carter-Sadat huddle of more than an hour and a half. Sadat was unhappy at letting Begin off the hook by passing the issue to the Knesset, and Carter's aides waiting outside the President's pine-paneled study grew more and more worried. Then, at 4:30, Carter looked out the window and flashed the thumbs-up sign. They had a deal. Begin got his copies of the proposed agreements in his cabin, Birch, read them carefully and told his aides: "If this is it, we're going to sign. I'm going to call President Sadat and then go see him." Outside, the rain was torrential. Begin told Sadat he would come over to his cabin, Dogwood, as soon as the rain stopped. Before he got there, Sadat sent over some autographed pictures of himself with Begin and Carter that he had dedicated to Begin's granddaughters. For 25 minutes Begin visited Sadat. A half-hour later, Sadat suddenly appeared, without warning, at the door of Begin's cabin to return the call. To reciprocate the gift of photographs, Begin presented Sadat with a medallion by Israeli Artist Yachov Agam. Its theme: "The Dream of Peace." Then Begin suggested, "Let's both go tomorrow night to hear President Carter address the Congress." Sadat agreed. Already, Carter's aides were making the arrangements for the trip down from the mountain to tell the world what the three leaders had wrought.

In some important aspects, Sadat had arrived at Camp David hazardously isolated. He had angered the Soviets by expelling their advisers, and annoyed Arab leaders by not consulting with them before he went to Jerusalem to launch his initiative. Because of his exposed position, he could look only to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia for major support in future international maneuvers, including any talks with the Israelis.

Begin, of course, also could ill afford to antagonize the U.S., which has been providing about $2 billion in aid annually to Israel. But in any disagreements with an American Administration, the Israelis could always count on considerable backing from the politically powerful U.S. Jewish community. American Zionist leaders had already been told by Begin's aides that after Camp David, they "might be called upon" to undertake a "massive" public relations campaign to defend Israel's position. But even with such backing inside the U.S.,