ISRAEL: NO MORE WAR, NO MORE BLOODSHED

 

Mom, Joni, and I in Jerusalem, 1977

In November of 1977, my mother and her best friend Tracy met Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin. They were in the briefing room of the Prime Minister's office surrounded by journalists and T.V. cameras. The American Ambassador, Sam Lewis, was there, along with a handful of US congressmen. Mom and Tracy had volunteered to take the congressmen's wives shopping, and now, they were all in the briefing room as Begin entered to make a momentous announcement. "I have news for you," Begin said. "Sadat is coming here on Saturday." 

After the announcement, everyone in the room shook Begin's hand, including Mom and Tracy. Mom was over the moon that she was witnessing history in the making. 

Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, arrived on Saturday night at Ben-Gurion Airport on a Boeing 707 with its red and black stripes and the words: ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT emblazoned along its side. As Sadat stepped out of the plane, a crowd of thousands applauded. He shook hands with Begin, who had been anxiously awaiting the arrival, and moments later the Egyptian national anthem, and then Israel's anthem played. Afterward, a 21-gun salute reverberated into the evening sky. 

My drawing of Sadat's visit at age seven

At the time, Israel and Egypt had no diplomatic relations and the Yom Kippur War, or also known as the October War, was only a few years before that. This historic meeting between Begin and Sadat was the biggest news event of 1977. Walter Cronkite of CBS News, and all the leading newspapers and television news crews from all over the world, were there. 

The US Embassy was in the middle of the action in more ways than was known at the time. The American Ambassador lent his Cadilac limo to the Israeli government to transport Sadat from the airport. In addition, on the night prior to Sadat's arrival in Israel, the US Embassy received information about a plot to assassinate Sadat while he was in Jerusalem. My father, and his Israeli assistant, Joe Spielman, immediately gave this information to the Shin Bet since they were responsible for Sadat's security during his stay in Israel. 

Four months later, on March 11, 1978, the worst terrorist attack in modern Israel's history occurred. Aimed at thwarting the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks, eleven PLO/al-Fatah terrorists landed by boat on the beach in Tel Aviv equipped with rifles, grenades, mortars, and high explosives, and then proceeded to open fire along the coastal highway, before hijacking a bus full of passengers. There was a gun battle between the police and the terrorists, and then, in a dramatic ending, the bus exploded and burst into flames. Thirty-eight people were killed, including thirteen children, and seventy-one people were injured. It became known as the Coastal Road Massacre. 

 

The big shoot-out between the terrorists and the Israeli police happened only a mile from our house, and the police were concerned that some of the terrorists had escaped and fled into our neighborhood where most American Embassy families lived, including the US Ambassador. The US Embassy set up a makeshift command post at the Ambassador's residence, and my father called all the American embassy families and told them to lock their doors and stay inside. Israeli soldiers literally walked through our yard looking for terrorists. 

The next day, the Israeli government concluded that all the terrorists had been killed. 

Historical perspective can be interesting. My father's assistant, Joe Spielman, told us that when he was a child, his family left Germany to come to Israel, which was then British Mandatory Palestine. As a teenager, in the 1940s, Joe became an Israeli freedom fighter. He had also been part of the Irgun, the right-wing Zionist paramilitary group that blew up the King David hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. Many people were killed and injured, including British, Arabs, and Jews. Joe told my parents that he had been young and rash and was regretful. The organization operated in British Mandatory Palestine between the years 1931 and 1948. They committed acts of terrorism against the British, whom it regarded as an illegal occupier. 

My dad and Joe Spielman

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The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty was signed in Washington D.C. on March 26, 1979, after intense negotiations between Begin and Sadat, and sixteen months after Sadat's visit to Israel in 1977. The agreement made Egpyt the first Arab state to officially recognize Israel. 

Anyone who lived in Israel between the years of 1973 and 1993 would be familiar with the rock station Voice of Peace Radio. It was a pirate radio station on a former Dutch cargo vessel anchored off the Israeli coast, which had been purchased and operated by peace activist Abie Nathan, with the help of John Lennon. Their jingle went: From somewhere in the Medditearean we are the Voice of Peace. Twenty-four hours a day. After the peace treaty was signed, the station added to their jingle by taking phrases from Begin and Sadat's speeches during their historic meetings. We'd hear an electric guitar screeching "Treeenh-heh" (Sadat''s voice): "The October war,"  Treenh, "should BE the last war!" Treenh-heh. Then Begin's voice would ring out: No more war! Treenh. No more bloodshed! 

Sadat was assassinated in Cario in October 1981.