Office of the Historian

209. Message From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to the Ambassador to Israel (Lewis)1

Washington, January 27, 1978, 2005Z

WH80181. The President wishes this message conveyed to the Prime Minister immediately after Sabbath. Vance concurs.

Begin message.

I deeply regret the effort to establish another illegal settlement on the West Bank at Shiloh.2 However, I am confident that Prime Minister Begin will honor the commitment personally made to me and thus will not permit this settlement to go forward.

End message.

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Middle East File, Subject File, Box 48, Israel: 1–2/78. Secret.↩
  2. On January 23, members of Gush Emunim, a religious settler movement formally established in 1974, dedicated a settlement in the West Bank town of Shiloh. Israeli officials claimed it was actually a camp for workers at a government-sponsored archaeological excavation and that they had provided no official sanction for a settlement there. (Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1978, p. B10) According to Carter’s January 30 diary entry, “The [Israeli] government did not authorize a new settlement at Shiloh, except for an archaeological site, but they’ve already moved twenty-five families in there—with Begin’s knowledge—and he’s too timid to remove them.” (White House Diary, p. 167)↩