410. Record of Meeting Between Israeli Prime Minister Begin and President Carter1
President Carter’s Notes Regarding his November 13, 1980 Meeting with PRIME MINISTER MENACHEM BEGIN of Israel (The White House, Washington, D.C.)
I met with Prime Minister Begin privately. He was ill at ease at first. I told him that I had accepted the result of the election with equanimity. This seemed to have a surprising effect on him for some reason, and he mentioned it several times.
I expressed my appreciation for his participation and contribution to the Camp David Accords and peace treaty, and my gratification that our bilateral relationships had remained strong in spite of many potential reasons for disruption of them. I pointed out our own security advantages from having a strong and free, peaceful, independent Israel. We discussed the political problems that had derived for us from the Camp David Accords.
He expressed agreement that the oil commitment was very satisfactory.
I told him that it would be a serious mistake for Israel to go forward with annexation of the Golan Heights. This would in effect signal to the rest of the world an abandonment by Israel of a commitment to UN Resolution 242, and it would open up floodgates of demands from other nations that the UN Resolution be abandoned or severely modified—something that we had tried to stop. I told him that in my opinion it was also a violation of the commitment made in the Camp David Accords. He didn’t respond, but I think he was impressed.
He brought up the subject of military supplies to Iran, saying that they had requested such help from Israel. He didn’t acknowledge that they had already made one shipment of tires to Iran. He said that they would like to make these shipments, they thought it would help Iran-Israeli future relationships, and would give them an opening to encourage the hostage release.
I told him immediately that this would be very bad for us, and I strongly urged Israel not to make any sort of further trade with Iran [Page 1371] until after the hostages were indeed released. It would be a violation of the embargo that we had tried to establish.
He promised to comply.
We agreed on the need to control proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Mid East. And I told him I would bring this up with the Reagan Administration.
I told him so far as I knew the relationship between our two countries was founded on public opinion in the broadest sense, and that I didn’t think there would be any radical change under Governor Reagan.
He asked me to permit the establishment of sensing devices in the West Bank area for the training of air pilots. We believe that they can get an adequate training capability by keeping these devices in the Negev and on the Israeli side of the Green Line. I told him I would look into it, but I made it plain that the Department of Defense would have to determine the necessity for any West Bank placement.
- Source: Carter Library, Plains File, President’s Personal Foreign Affairs File, Box 2, Israel, 4/79–11/81. No classification marking. According to the President’s Daily Diary, Carter met with Begin in the Oval Office from 11:05 to 11:40 a.m. (Carter Library, Presidential Materials)↩