Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume VIII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978

271. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Kent, England, July 19, 1978, 9:20 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Talks—Middle East Peace Negotiations

PARTICIPANTS

• U.S.:
• Secretary of State Vance
• Ambassador Lewis
• Israel:
• Foreign Minister Dayan
• Attorney General Barak

The Secretary opened the discussion by making a few introductory comments about the progress of the first day’s meetings, stressing that he thought that they had been useful although by no means represented any breakthroughs. He asked Dayan what he thought would be the most useful way to approach the next phase of discussions.

Dayan said he did not know whether the Egyptians would agree to any further meetings. The Secretary said that Kamel is not authorized at present to do so, but that he would push him further. He intended to say he would come to the area in about two weeks, and he would press Sadat to agree that a meeting be held during that period. Dayan said that any place convenient to the Secretary is all right with the Israelis. The Secretary said the same was true for the United States, but that it would be best to be an expanded format with defense ministers and foreign ministers both participating.

Dayan then went through a long series of comments about how he saw the present state of negotiations. First, he said, it’s clear there is no chance to get the Israeli government to commit itself in advance to full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. “I’ve explained what is feasible. Had I been the Egyptians, I would have compromised, taken at this point what they can get from the Israeli cabinet for the Palestinians, that is, a great degree of self rule. And, ultimately they would, therefore, be able to show the Palestinians that they had achieved a great deal of progress for them, on the way toward independence. They won’t get a precommitment from this government for total withdrawal, and I’m afraid that Jordan won’t come into the negotiations”. The Secretary agreed with Dayan’s observation about Jordan.

Dayan went on to say that he doubted very much whether Egypt will be able to sign any peace treaty for the West Bank, even with some Palestinians sitting with them, since Jordan will hang back. At present, he said, Egypt could make some sort of agreement but not a full peace treaty. And in any case, they would do it in stages, even if Jordan were participating. So, therefore, the Israelis would have to live with this kind of procedure “if we can’t get anything better.”

Dayan then said he would like to outline his assessment of what he thought might be done. He stressed that the ideas were extremely sensitive and should have no further distribution “beyond the four of us.” He recalled that in Sadat’s recent meeting with Weizman² he had brought up the idea of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal in Sinai to the line connecting Al-Arish and Ras Mohammed. “If we can’t get a full agreement, maybe this is a possibility, but not as a unilateral gesture by Israel. Rather it would have to be the result of a real negotiation.” It might be easier for Sadat to make such an agreement than full peace, since he would have most of the real assets in Sinai (the Gulf of Suez, the oil fields, Al-Arish, the major Israeli air bases, Rafadim, and so forth), but could still say credibly to the other Arabs that he had not gotten all of his land back nor made a “separate peace.”

Dayan stressed that the Israeli cabinet has not agreed to any such ideas, and would not propose itself such a negotiation for a partial withdrawal. However, he said, if Sadat proposes that, it is a real possibility and Gamasy would see real military advantages in it. “We shall certainly ask for quid pro quos, such as something with respect to pledges of no more war and some of the elements of full peace.” Obviously, he said, he would prefer total peace, but something is better than nothing.

Dayan then continued: “So if we combine the two conclusions that Jordan is not likely to join, and yet Egypt wants to go ahead, then perhaps Egypt would wish to go ahead on such a partial step.” He would not rule out the possibility that Sadat might make full peace just over Gaza, but he doubted it.

The Secretary responded that these ideas of Dayan’s were well worth thinking further about, but that he would like to come back for a moment to the larger issue. If, he said, Sadat could achieve a broad commitment on principle, then the Secretary thought he would sign an agreement on the West Bank and Gaza without Hussein. “He’s said as much to me. That then takes us back to what happens after the first five year period. You said yesterday with regard to your security requirements on the West Bank that they did depend in part upon the territory—that security cannot be separated from land and borders. But what about substituting well-defined rights and land, for example, the right to maintain your security forces idefinitely in the West Bank as required and agreed upon?”

Dayan responded that if the sovereignty lodges elsewhere, the government could throw out Israeli forces at any time.

The Secretary argued that with a binding agreement, and the forces themselves present to protect that agreement, there would be no danger.

Dayan said that unfortunately it is in the essence of the concept of sovereignty that any sovereign power can abrogate an agreement if it chooses to do so, and “there are many precedents.” Dayan said he knows his position was not the one which the Secretary wanted to hear; therefore, why not check it with the Israeli cabinet when the Secretary came to the area? “Maybe I’m wrong.” The Secretary said he would do so.

Dayan then described a conversation he had had with Bill Quandt at dinner about an idea concerning the Israeli right to purchase land.³ He said he knew that a dinner conversation had no official status, but he would be interested in discussing Quandt’s idea further. The idea would be, he said, that Israelis would have permanent rights to purchase land in the West Bank and Gaza from private individuals, while all of the state-owned lands would be under control of the Arab administrative authorities who might refuse to sell any of it to Israelis. If this concept were combined with free access for the Palestinian residents to both Jordan and Israel, it could be an important concept. “And if we could overcome the key obstacles of security arrangements and the rights for Israelis to purchase land there to settle, we would be going a long way toward a solution.”

Dayan said he thought that the real obstacle now is not “in the actual concept but in the Egyptian demand for a precommitment about the ultimate outcome.”

The Secretary replied that Sadat has to be able to say convincingly to his Arab brethren that the Israeli occupancy is ended. “Yet he knows that your security must be protected, and that the problem of protecting it is different in the West Bank than in Sinai. How can you help to put him in the position to deal with both these requirements?”

Dayan said that hearing this point, he felt a little better about the possibility of finding a relative formula to achieve Sadat’s goal. “Let’s define what the Israeli occupation really consists of. Let’s see what has to be done to put an end to it, in particular to the various elements of it. You agree that we need some Israeli forces at particular points for our security—this is not the same as an occupation force. For Israelis to purchase land from an individual in the West Bank just as they can purchase land from individuals in the United States or in Europe is surely not occupation.” I agree personally, he said, that the formula should be that we have no occupation forces in the territories, and then we must agree exactly on what is needed to end that occupation as it has been more precisely defined.

The Secretary said that this was why we had posed the first question to the Israelis about making a definite decision on sovereignty in the way we had framed it. “The way things look at present, with your answer to our question about what happens after five years, the Arabs believe that not only are you an occupying power but that the occupancy will be permanent since you have no idea of ever relinquishing your sovereignty claim.”

Dayan said, “Without the sovereignty, we’re in trouble with Begin. If we were to give up our claim to sovereignty, that inevitably means that eventually there will be some form of Arab sovereignty. Then the issue will become how binding any agreements might be if an Arab sovereign government will be able to repudiate them. Any sovereign state can abolish an agreement, just look at the Constantinople agreement concerning the Suez Canal⁴ as only one of many examples.”

The Secretary said that he could, however, conceive of an agreement involving Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians which included an Israeli renunciation of its sovereign claim in exchange for perpetual rights to have security forces in the West Bank, guaranteed free access and open borders, rights for Israelis to purchase lands in the West Bank, and so forth—all ratified in some fashion by the Palestinian residents of the territories. He said such an agreement would indeed be binding.

Dayan said, “I don’t think Begin would agree.”

The Secretary said he understood, but that if only the Israelis’ answer to our first question had been positive, the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Jordanians, and all of the moderate Arabs would have seen the situation totally differently.

Dayan then returned to his basic thesis: that for the Egyptians the best thing is to get Begin and the Israeli cabinet to go as far on the West Bank as is possible now. He said that the United States could assure the Arabs that a great deal more would be possible after five years, obviously our influence with Israel would continue to be very great. “If I were an Arab, I would think that gives us a very good chance.” But in any event, that’s all you can get from a Begin government. If you press Begin for more, you won’t get it. But if you want to try for more with him, you should certainly do so. “Realistically, however, the best thing to do is to convince Sadat that he can’t get everything he wants now; he can get some now, more later during the five years, and a good chance for a decision about ultimate sovereignty after five years. But he can get no commitment on that point at this stage. And I don’t exclude the idea of some sharing of sovereignty after five years, beginning with Jerusalem. When Sadat told Weizman in talking about Jerusalem that he would not care which faction was over the city, so long as it was an Islamic flag, that was what I had proposed unsuccessfully in 1967—though Begin opposed me.”

Dayan insisted that what the Palestinians want is some form of autonomy and independence within the Arab world, but a way to maintain contacts with Israel. “Let’s work it out that way.” But if you ask Begin today for a commitment to a discussion about sovereignty in the future, he won’t give it—he knows that there is no ralistic possibility of Israeli sovereignty’s being chosen—and that means that in practice he is committing himself to turn over sovereignty to the Arabs.

The Secretary then said he would like to ask about the idea about a limited right of self-determination excluding independence as an option. “What’s wrong with that from the Israeli standpoint?”

Dayan responded that what bothered him is not a question of options, but rather that the suggested system of a referendum or plebiscite would subject the process to intolerable PLO intimidation. He reminded the Secretary that the Israelis try to distinguish between the people in the territories and the territories themselves. “I have no problem with the Palestinians’ deciding what relationship they want individually or collectively with Jordan or other neighbors. But they cannot make alone the decision about the land, where some Israelis will also be living. If the Palestinian Arabs determine themselves alone the future of the land, then whoever holds sovereignty could restrict the rights and security of the Israelis resident in the land.” Now in some areas, he said, particularly in Gaza, the Arab population is such that there is no practical possibility for Israeli settlement. In such areas, the practical distinction between decisions about the population’s relationship with others and decisions about the land would be practically meaningless, but where there is a possibility of future Israeli settlement, as in much of the West Bank, the distinction is important.

Dayan pointed out that if the phraseology about self-determination contained in the Egyptian proposals were augmented by a phrase “through talks among . . .” then you would have a very similar concept, so long as it is clear that the Palestinians involved in the discussion were the people living there rather than all Palestinians in other parts of the Arab world.

The Secretary then pointed out that there was one positive area in the discussions the day before: you reached general agreement on how to deal with the terrorist problem.

Dayan agreed though he said it would be difficult to reach an understanding on how to handle “public order.” The definition of roles between local police and the Israeli security forces would have to be carefully hammered out, and it would be difficult. However, this kind of detailed discussion is covered in the Egyptian proposal and he liked that aspect of it.

The Secretary again returned to the problem of “withdrawal”. He said that the biggest problem for the Egyptians and the Arabs are these two concepts: “sovereignty” and “withdrawal”.

Dayan said he saw three sticking points: sovereignty, withdrawal, and occupation. With respect to these three concepts: “Maybe we could reach agreement, as we discussed earlier, on how to deal with the problem of Israeli occupation; on sovereignty, the most we can do is to agree to discuss the subject after five years, as we have done; and as to withdrawal, perhaps we could agree on your formula under which Israeli security forces would stay but Israeli occupation forces would be withdrawn, clearly distinguishing between the two kinds of forces.

The Secretary said that Sadat understands this latter distinction with regard to types of forces, and is prepared to have forces for security purposes remain in the West Bank, certainly for five years, “and, I believe, for beyond five years as well.” He said that the Egyptians stress the need to abolish the military government and to allow the Palestinians to take over responsibility for their own self-government. He said he saw a number of parallels in some of the phrases in the Egyptian plan to the comments Dayan had just made.

Dayan agreed, read some sections from the Israeli base plan and stressed the Israeli intention to abolish the military government. Both he and Barak mentioned the fact that he had not succeeded the previous day in getting clearly across to Kamel this distinction between occupying forces and security forces.

The conversation concluded with some discussion about how to deal with the press after the conference ended.

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Middle East Subject File, Box 2, Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations 1978: Volume II [II]. Secret; Nodis. Drafted by Lewis. The meeting took place at Leeds Castle.
2. For a report on Sadat’s meeting with Weizman, see Document 265.
3. No record of this discussion was found.
4. A reference to the Constantinople Convention of 1888, which declared the free navigation of the Suez Canal at all times and defined the regulations related to its security and neutrality.