Meeting At Camp David

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Sadat has also dug in his heels and twice refused to continue talks. But Begin does seem to bear by far the greatest responsibility for the current impasse. Many U.S. officials feel that the Israeli leader does not really want peace on anything but his own terms. Perhaps it would be more fair to say that Begin considers his terms essential to Israel's survival and Israel's future—even more essential, indeed, than a peace treaty.

Sadat made an important concession to the Israelis by journeying to Jerusalem, saluting the Israeli flag and battle banners, standing before the assembled Knesset and declaring on behalf of his fellow Egyptians: "We welcome you among us with full security and safety . . . We accept to live with you in a permanent peace." That was tantamount to Egyptian recognition of Israel, which Israel has long demanded as a condition for reaching a settlement.

Begin's responses, however, have often seemed inadequate and at times rude. Speaking in January at a Jerusalem banquet for Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel, for example, Begin patronizingly referred to his guest as a "young man" who failed to understand the supposed parallel between the Palestinian desire for a homeland on the West Bank and the Nazis' claim to the Sudetenland. Later he brusquely dismissed the significance of Sadat's visit to Jerusalem by asserting: "We have existed, my dear Egyptian friends, without your recognition for 3,700 years. We never asked your President or government to recognize our right to exist."

The Israeli government, moreover, has pushed ahead with the establishment or expansion of its controversial settlements in the occupied territories, even though previous Israeli governments had acknowledged that most of these territories would have to be returned to Arab rule. Carter sent Begin three messages expressing his personal concern about the Israeli moves, and Secretary of State Vance stated that the Israeli settlements "are contrary to international law."

But Begin denied all suggestions that he was being belligerent. On the contrary, last December he submitted to the U.S. and Egypt a 26-point peace plan for the West Bank and Gaza, together with a promise at least to return the Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. Washington judged the plan "a fair basis for negotiation," but did not fully endorse it. Instead, Carter asked the Israelis to explain what status they envisioned for the West Bank and Gaza at the end of the plan's five-year transition period. Jerusalem's vaguely worded reply merely promised that Israel would be willing to negotiate "the nature of the future relations between the parties" after the transition.

Israel's refusal to commit itself to eventual Arab sovereignty over the territories angered the Carter Administration and convinced a number of key U.S. officials that Begin was repudiating the professed willingness of past Israeli leaders to withdraw from at least major portions of the West Bank in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, adopted in 1967.

By this spring, the old bitterness again inflamed relations between Egypt and Israel. Sadat did not help matters when he tried, unsuccessfully, to erode Begin's support inside Israel by meeting in Austria with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, a