Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume IX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, August 1978–December 1980, Second, Revised Edition

117. Letter from the Israeli Ambassador to the United States (Dinitz) to President Carter¹

Washington, October 29, 1978

My dear Mr. President:

I have been asked by Prime Minister Begin to transmit to you the following message:

“Dear Mr. President,

This is the third letter I am writing to you today.² I feel it my duty to do so at this crucial moment. My words are addressed to you not as by a Prime Minister to the President of the United States of America, but as man to man and, mainly, as friend to friend.

My colleagues and I hear very often the argument that we must understand the delicate situation of President Sadat vis-a-vis the Arab World and the Rejectionists. Today, may I ask: What about my situation, my difficulties? To prove the point, I will inform you of the following facts:

The men of the Irgun³ whom I led from the underground into a fight for liberty for five years are my most beloved friends. As far as I studied history, I can say that there were never cleaner fighters, nor more idealistic volunteers. For five years we were always together, through thick and thin, in good and bad days. Now, for the first time in thirty-four years a group of them is in ‘revolt’ against their brother and former commander.

Nearly half of my own party members in the Knesset either voted against or abstained. Some young people dabbed on the walls of Zeev Jabotinsky House the words: ‘Begin—Traitor.’ I have to live with all this phenomena.

Let me speak frankly: President Sadat’s regime is a dictatorship supported by the Army and a totally controlled press. We do not talk about democracy, we practice it. At the latest Cabinet session, of which I informed you, in order to gain a few votes I had to make an hour-long speech which was a real exertion not only in the intellectual sense of the word.

One of my predecessors, Mrs. Golda Meir, having received the so-called Rogers Plan, said to the NEW YORK TIMES that an Israeli Government that would accept such a Plan would commit treason to our people.⁴ I hope, Mr. President, that your Administration will not bring forth plans or make proposals—as exemplified by the Saunders Mission—that will compel me to repeat my predecessor’s statement.

Please excuse me, Mr. President, for having written this long letter. But it is a crucial moment and I feel, with all my heart, that we deal with the future and, indeed, with the lives of the Jewish people who have returned after all the age-long suffering to the land of their ancestors.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,

Menachem Begin”

Respectfully yours,

Simcha Dinitz
Ambassador

1. Source: Carter Library, Plains File, President’s Personal Foreign Affairs File, Box 2, Israel, 11/77–2/79. Personal for the President’s Eyes Only. At the top of the document, Carter wrote: “Zbig—do not distribute. C.” The original signed version of the message is ibid.
2. Begin’s other October 29 letter is printed as Document 116. A further, third letter has not been found.
3. See footnote 2, Document 97.
4. On December 22, 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir stated her opposition to a Middle East peace plan proposed by Secretary of State William P. Rogers that called for Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 border in return for a binding peace agreement with its Arab neighbors. She stated, “The Government cannot accept a paper of this kind,” adding “[i]t would be treasonous for any Israeli Government to accept it.” (James Feron, “Mrs. Meir is Indignant,” The New York Times, December 23, 1969, p. 1)