Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency release of Foreign Broadcast Information Service coverage of the Middle East peace talks from December 1977. It collects British, Israeli and Soviet press and radio items on President as-Sadat's initiative and the planned Cairo conference. It also covers Prime Minister Begin's visit to London, Secretary of State Vance's regional tour and the Knesset debate on the peace plan. It contains no material on unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Cairo”42 pages
PPROVED FOR RELEASE CIA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION AR 70-14 13NOV201 V. 28 Dec 77 N 14 ISRAEL And which side will world public opinion, which today stands beside us also as a resu1lt of the concessions that we have made, take? Let us not forget this, including the American public opinion. Will it stand by the side that calls, say, for a continued temporariness, or by the side of the party that calls for a permanent solution, while having consideration for the population living in the territories. And with Jordants absence from the plan, will the PLO also be absent? And when there is a permanent PLO threat, we do not know what the results of such a government will be. In my opinion the government made a mistake in its choice of direction. It might be able to avoid some of these mistakes--and it was able to avoid them [as heard]--were it to actively maintain pariliamentary processes. It is untrue that parliamentary consul- tions are required only to add honor to parliament. It is part of the introduction of additional wisdom and experience to the government. Members of the Knesset, with all their disadvantages and leaks, parliamentary regimes are much stronger than regimes with nonspeaking mouths and nonlistening ears. We know that the Ismailia conference was not a total success but it was a success. W'e welcome the establishment of the two committees for policy and security. A security committee in Cairo and a peace committee in Jerusalem is preferable to a conference in Geneva which discusses procedure. These are direct and important negotiations, and one should not doubt their value at all. We see no room, despite the difficulties that are being revealed, and there are and will be difficulties, to accept the prime minister's overly optimistic view, and I think that he is wrong in this optimism because the difficulties naturally do not depend only on us, but there is no room to despair. At thesame time we all know that the alternative to peace negotiations--either by the use of Soviet arms or pressure from the United States, or the renewal of the military option-- promises nothing to the Arab side, and the alternative of a return to the previous situat:i.on is undesirable for Israel. Postponement will not help and evasion will not save. We strive to bring a new order to the Middle East--not an order founded on wars, conquests and fighting, but an order built on peace, good-neighbor relations and mutual respect. The whole of the Knesset supports Israel's outstretched hand to peace. We are open to ideas which contain something new, and the house is united behind a real peace--both ' in the government and the opposition. There is a firm and promising unity. We will submit our positive proposals and we will vote for them. We will not vote against the government's decisions just as we cannot vote in favor of them because of the criticism that I have leveled. We will grant a free vote to each of our members. BEGIN INFORMS AS-SADAT OF PEACE PLAN CHANGES TA281231Y Jerusalem Domestic Service in Hebrew 1100 GMT 28 Dec 77 TA [Text] In a conversation with correspondents at the Knesset, Prime Minister Menahem LEv;L;s said that he has submitted to President as-Sadat, via the U.S. ambassador, changes i his peace plan. President as-Sadat will receive the changes today. Begin told the correspondents that the plan he submitted to the Knesset today is his original peace plan. President Carter and Secretary of State Vance did not know about it until Begin went to the United States.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 65 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.