Office of the Historian

213. Note From President Carter to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, February 7, 1978
To Zbig

I have examined all my notes & dictation from the 12/16 & 12/17 meetings with Begin.2 During my private meeting he discussed a) IL 76’s→Iraq, b) The need to expedite a decision on weapon sales to Israel, & c) his hope that we would give support to Ethiopia against Somalia. Never any discussion of settlements.

In the general meeting he now says he talked of settlements in Sinai—I don’t recall it & it isn’t in my current (then) notes. No one in U.S. gov’t to my knowledge has ever accepted the need, propriety or legality of Israeli civilian settlements on occupied territory. In referring to his general Sinai proposal I said then that it sounded reasonable.

J.C.
  1. Source: Carter Library, President’s Plains File, President’s Personal Foreign Affairs File, Box 2, 11/77–2/79. No classification marking. Carter wrote the note by hand.↩
  2. No notes or dictation have been found. For the memoranda of conversation of the December 16 and 17 meetings with Begin, see Documents 177 and 178. In his meeting with Vance on January 16, Begin expressed his contention that he had left the White House “with so many blessings” after his December 16 and 17 meetings with President Carter, where he discussed his plan to keep Israeli settlements in the Sinai. See Document 195.↩