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The Israelis, who put $250 million into defense lines around the passes, and would have to spend $170 million on building new positions farther back, wanted an agreement lasting up to eight years. They were persuaded to offer a three-year limit. Kissinger was able to get Sadat to commit Egypt to a purposely vague "nonuse of force" statement, in which Cairo pledged that it would not engage in warlike activities for the period of the agreement. Kissinger felt that this could have satisfied Israel's requirements of nonbelligerency, even though the Israelis feared a Soviet use of the veto in the United Nations Security Council.
But Sadat would not formally commit himself to a timetable longer than a one-year mandate for the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Sinai. Furthermore, the statement deliberately left vague what action Egypt might take if Israel went to war with another Arab state. He also turned down Israel's proposals for such "fruits of nonbelligerency" as joint operation of the Abu Rudeis oilfields, an end to Egypt's economic boycott of Israel and indirect tourism between Egypt and Israel, on the ground that they were all aspects of a formal nonbelligerency agreement. Ultimately the sides could not even agree on a modified pullback of Israeli forces to the middle of the passes, which Jerusalem suggested as a compromise when the idea of a larger-scale withdrawal fell through.
The Israeli Cabinet, remarked one Kissinger aide as the negotiations neared a climax, "seemed to want an agreement as individuals, but when it came time to act as a group, they were paralyzed." Kissinger privately believed that Rabin wanted to accept but felt he could not because of his political opposition. In an extraordinary meeting that continued past sundown into the Sabbath, the Cabinet, after heated debate, agreed on a last proposal. The Israelis would pull back to the east end of the passes and U.N. forces would be inserted between them and the Egyptians at the west end; Egypt could take over Abu Rudeis as an enclave inside Israeli-held territory, with access across a 100-mile road controlled by U.N. checkpoints.
Kissinger cabled the proposal to Egypt but got back a flat no; Sadat at that point wanted all of the passes. The Secretary's voice was shaking as he bade farewell to Israel after the collapse of the talks. Even hawkish Defense Minister Shimon Peres, a victim of fatigue and disappointment, had wept during a meeting with Kissinger at the King David Hotel.
On the flight back to Washington, Kissinger summed up the collapse of the talks in an evenhanded manner: "The political situation in Israel made it impossible to get off the nonbelligerency kick. The international situation in the Arab world made it impossible for Sadat not to at least get the Israelis out of the passes." U.S. diplomats privately praised the Egyptian President for his apparent willingness to compromise and roasted Rabin as a weak Premier who in the crunch turned out to be a prisoner of his coalition Cabinet.