Word: knesset
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Unexpected events created by instant diplomacy no longer seemed impossible after Sadat's trip to Jerusalem. By his visit and a tough but compassionate speech to the Knesset, he had acknowledged Israel's right to exist in a way few Jews ever expected from an Arab leader. He and Premier Menachem Begin had made a mutual pledge: "No more war." The Egyptian President made it clear that this promise was a conditional one-namely that there would be no more war if Israel accepted a peace agreement that included the return of all Arab territories occupied since...
...based on three specific worries: 1) Sadat might abandon the Pan-Arab cause and seek a separate peace agreement with Israel; 2) the Egyptian President, by setting foot in Israel, was granting de facto recognition to a state that radical Arabs refuse to accept; 3) in speaking to the Knesset, he was also acknowledging Israel's right to consider Jerusalem as its capital (even the U.S. maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv). Attempting to blunt such criticism in advance of his trip, Sadat last week flew to Damascus to confer with Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has been somewhat suspicious...
...privately have been trying only to call Sadat's bluff, the Israeli Premier accepted Sadat's proposal. The commitments were firmed up, in an extraordinary act of television diplomacy, during interviews with Anchorman Walter Cronkite on last Monday's CBS Evening News (see box). Begin thereupon summoned the Knesset to provide the necessary authorization...
Although Washington was surprised by these events, the U.S. readily agreed to serve as "postman"?the good-natured term of Ambassador Samuel Lewis in Jerusalem. At the Knesset, Lewis picked up the formal invitation that Sadat had requested. The message was cabled from the embassy in Tel Aviv to Ambassador Hermann Eilts in Cairo?with, of course, a copy to Washington. Eilts in turn personally delivered the invitation to Sadat and cabled back to Jerusalem the Egyptian President's affirmative response...
...coup, the network began seeking agreement from Begin and Sadat for an unprecedented televised dialogue, during which an invitation could be made and accepted directly. When ABC Correspondent Peter Jennings in Cairo broached the idea to Sadat during an untelevised discussion Monday, Sadat said he would go before the Knesset, if formally invited. That night ABC news showed Jennings paraphrasing his talk with Sadat, and then cut to a taped interview with Begin, who offered Sadat a verbal invitation. "Cronkite took credit for breaking the log jam," groused ABC News and Sports President Roone Arledge. "We talked to Sadat first...