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Begin came with Dayan and Barak, for which we were thankful. If anyone at Camp David had influence on Begin, it was these two men. Begin began talking about the blessed settlements, but I insisted that we go through both documents in an orderly fashion, paragraph by paragraph. I wanted the Israelis to realize how few differences remained. In an hour we were finished with the Sinai document, and it was obvious to me that Sadat would be willing to accept almost all the Israeli demands for change. The few others were not very important to Begin, and I felt sure that he would not insist on them.
We then moved to the settlements again, and Begin insisted that he would negotiate with Sadat on all other items for three months in search of a final peace treaty. If this effort was completely successful, he would submit the settlement withdrawal question to the Knesset. I told him again and again that his proposal was totally unacceptable to Sadat, who insisted on a commitment to remove all Israeli settlers from his territory before any other negotiations could be conducted.
I thought the discussion would never end. Begin was shouting words like "ultimatum," "excessive demands" and "political suicide." However, he finally promised to submit to the Knesset within two weeks the question: "If agreement is reached on all other Sinai issues, will the settlers be withdrawn?"
I believed this would be enough for Sadat. Breakthrough!
We then had a surprisingly amicable discussion about the framework for peace. On Jerusalem, I told the Israelis that Sadat wanted a separate exchange of letters so that each nation could make public its own different ideas. On the West Bank settlements, we worked out language that no new Israeli settlements would be established after the signing of this framework and that the issue of additional settlements would be resolved during the negotiations. Begin later denied that he had agreed to this, and claimed that he had promised to stop building settlements only for a three-month period. My notes are clear—the settlement freeze would continue until all negotiations were completed.
Day 13: A thumbs-up sign
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. I was eager to meet with Sadat, and he and I quickly went over the proposals for the final language. The few predictable changes that he advocated would, I was sure, be acceptable to the Israelis. The only serious problem was his desire to delete the entire paragraph on Jerusalem. I knew that the Israelis wanted the same thing, but I did not tell Sadat. I reserved this concession in case I needed bargaining points later.
When it became apparent that the Jerusalem paragraph remained a potential obstacle to any agreement at all, the three negotiators decided to delete it. Instead, all three were to outline their