Sadat's "Sacred Mission"

It could not have been more improbable or unexpected. It was as if a messenger from Allah had descended to the Promised Land on a magic carpet.

At two minutes to 8 on Saturday night--the evening arrival was carefully chosen so as not to violate the Jewish Sabbath--the Egyptian white Boeing 707, its red trim glistening under klieg lights, rolled to a stop at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli army trumpeters blared out a welcoming fanfare. As thousands of Israelis waved their newly purchased red-white-and-black Egyptian flags, out stepped President Anwar Sadat on a "sacred mission"--to speak directly to the people of Israel about peace.

Descending the El Al ramp, Sadat was greeted warmly by President Ephraim Katzir and Premier Menachem Begin. "Thank you," said Sadat as he shook hands. Answered Begin: "You are welcome. Thank you for coming to visit us." Never before had the Middle East witnessed such a moment--the first visit ever of an Arab leader to the Jewish state--and Israelis could scarcely believe what they were seeing. Egypt has been an implacable enemy in four bitter Arab-Israeli wars that have cost countless thousands of lives and casualties on both sides, yet there was Anwar Sadat standing solemnly at attention as a military band played both the Egyptian national anthem and the Israeli Hatikvah. In the background, gunners fired off a 21-gun salute.

Looking confident and relaxed, Sadat inspected an Israeli honor guard and shook hands with an astonishing array of Israeli dignitaries. Among those on the receiving line: former Premiers Yitzhak Rabin and Golda Meir. Sadat greeted her with delight: "Madame, I have waited a long time to meet you." He smiled broadly when introduced to Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan--Israel's great hero of the 1967 Six-Day War--and was particularly eager to meet Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, who commanded Israel's Sinai forces in the 1973 October War. "I planned to catch you across the canal," said Sadat, as he shook hands with Sharon. He then stepped into a bulletproof limousine for the 30-mile drive to the Holy City of Jerusalem. There Sadat would stay--for two nights--at the King David Hotel, which Begin, then leader of the underground Irgun organization, had bombed in 1946 as part of his campaign to drive the British from Palestine.

Sunday, as Sadat later reminded his Knesset listeners, was 'Id al-Adha, an Islamic holy day that commemorates the willingness of Abraham, the patriarch and prophet revered by Jews and Muslims alike, to sacrifice his son. The visiting President began the day with prayer at Al Aqsa mosque in Old Jerusalem, the third holiest spot in Islam. Then as a gesture to Egypt's large Coptic minority, he stopped at the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which in Christian tradition sanctifies the spot where Jesus rose from the dead. With his hosts, he visited Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the 6 million victims of Hitler's Holocaust and also laid a wreath at Israel's Unknown Soldier memorial outside the Knesset building. There was a working lunch with Begin and Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. Sadat and his host apparently got along well personally. "We like each other," said Begin after their first private talk Saturday night.

At 4 in the afternoon, Sadat mounted the rostrum of the Knesset to deliver--in Arabic--a 57-minute speech notable for its rhetorical passion. He had come to the Knesset, the President said, not to sign a peace treaty but to break down the "barrier of suspicion, fear, illusion and misinterpretation" that for so long has prevented the two neighbors from even talking about peace. In the strongest acknowledgment ever made by an Arab leader of Israel's right to exist, Sadat said, "You want to live with us in this part of the world. We welcome you in sincerity." Sadat promised that "we will accept all the international guarantees you might require" through the two superpowers, one superpower or a collection of powers. He admitted that the Arab states had rejected Israel in the past, refusing to meet its representatives. "Yet today we agree to live with you," he said. "Israel has become a fait accompli recognized by the whole world."

Sadat insisted that Israel could have peace with justice and security, but on conditions that few of his Knesset listeners would be likely to accept. He called on Israel to return all Arab territory occupied during the Six-Day War--including the Old City of Jerusalem--and to recognize "the core of the problem": a national homeland for the Palestinian people. "It is not fair," he insisted, "to ask for yourself what you deny to others. Even the U.S., your first and foremost ally, chose to face reality."

Sadat acknowledged that he had "broken all traditions known to warring states" by visiting Israel, and he loftily forgave "all those who greeted my decision with astonishment or called it a verbal maneuver for public consumption." In an emotional conclusion directed to "the people of Israel," Sadat besought them to "teach your children that what has passed is the end of suffering and what will come is a new life." Said former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, an Arab linguist, when Sadat had finished: "The speech itself was predictable. I could have written it myself. But the Middle East can never be the same again."

Responding in Hebrew, Begin reminded his visitor of the long history of suffering and exile of the Jewish people, who "never for a day" had forgotten that Eretz Israel was their homeland. The Premier, who referred only sporadically to his written speech, provided the only surprise of the day. He declared that "our country is open to all the citizens of Egypt without any condition, and may the visitors be many." In return, Begin said, he hoped to visit Cairo too, and he issued a call to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon "to come and talk to us."

Begin was obviously signaling loudest to Syrian President Hafez Assad, one of the Arab leaders most opposed to Sadat's journey. Said the Premier: "There is no justification for the poison that comes from our northern border." While stressing that Israel disagreed with some points that Sadat had raised--the return of East Jerusalem to Arab control, for instance--Begin insisted that Israel and the Arabs should at least talk and negotiate. "Let us continue the dialogue and grasp one another's hands. Israel does not wish to rule, disturb or divide." He looked forward finally to a day when the sides could exchange ambassadors and "we will have disagreements and discuss them like cultured nations."

Sadat was applauded both when he walked to the podium and when he finished his address--almost unprecedented in the Knesset. His insistence on full return of the occupied territories chilled the atmosphere somewhat, but there was no abrupt foreshortening of his schedule. Later in the day he met with members of Israel's opposition parties and had a working dinner with Begin at which more substantive issues were discussed than the speeches covered.

Sadat's astonishing voyage to the heartland of his enemy sent commentators groping for comparisons, and their choices helped put some measure on the rarity of the event. Cairo's leading newspaper, al-Ahram, judged the meeting of Sadat and Begin--the one a devout Muslim, the other a deeply religious Jew--to be the most important of its kind since the Prophet Mohammad made a covenant with the Jews of Medina 1,355 years ago. Some religious Jews even saw the Sadat-Begin meeting foreshadowed in the Torah text for the Sabbath (Vayishlach) to be read at prayer services this Saturday morning. It was a passage from Genesis describing the reconciliation of Jacob and his brother Esau, who fathered the Edomites, said to be forebears of today's Arabs. A key passage from the reading: "Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold Esau came ... and Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept."

Sadat is making a historic, statesmanlike gamble that may very well change the future of the Middle East--for better or for worse. And in accepting Sadat's overtures to direct contacts, Begin has shown an initiative and enterprise somewhat surprising for an old independence fighter and memorably different from the dogged, entrenched positions that were taken by the Labor governments that preceded his Likud faction in power.

As Sadat made clear in advance, the purpose of his trip was not to negotiate a separate agreement with Israel; that would isolate Egypt in most of the Arab world and possibly even lead to Sadat's own downfall. Gravely concerned about the slow progress of pre-Geneva negotiations, Sadat was seeking to persuade Israel to drop all preconditions and come to the renewed peace conference that President Carter has been pushing for. If Sadat should succeed in the talks that lie ahead, a negotiated settlement, after 29 years of war and brink of war, is within the realm of hope. If he fails, another war becomes a vivid danger. In the process, Sadat has put on the line his position as leader of the moderate Arabs, and perhaps his life as well. Even before he embarked on his mission, Sadat was being denounced in Libya, Iraq and elsewhere as a traitor to the Arab cause.

Indeed, as the furies rose among more fanatical Arab groups, one of the safest places Sadat might have found was Israel. Four Israeli Kfir fighters escorted the presidential plane to Ben Gurion Airport, which was closed to all other traffic. In Jerusalem, 10,000 policemen were on guard, as well as 2,000 security agents and a special antiterrorist commando unit of the Israel Defense Force. The 1,500-member border police was fully mobilized, and units were stationed at key points along Sadat's route. There were blockades around the King David Hotel, whose 300 guests had been politely but firmly evicted. Only Egyptians were permitted to stand guard in and around Sadat's quarters. During the President's visit to the Al Aqsa mosque, the Old City was sealed off, as was the Knesset building. "We cannot guarantee his survival in Egypt," said one Israeli security official, "but here with us he is as safe as if he were at his well-protected palace."

In Israel, reported TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Don Neff, the announcement that Sadat was actually coming touched off an explosive emotional reaction. "People were stopping conversations in midsentence, nonplused. Husbands and wives stared at each other in disbelief. Knots of people gathered on the streets and in shocked tones tried to figure out what it all meant. The unbelievable was happening."

Enthusiasm for the big event was contagious. The Tel Aviv daily Ma'ariv splashed a banner headline across its front page in Hebrew and Arabic: WELCOME, PRESIDENT SADAT. Soccer fans even proposed that Sadat bring along an Egyptian squad of footballers to play a match against Israel's national team. Radio Israel's Arabic service devoted its program to Egyptian music, including two hit tunes that sounded particularly appropriate, You Are Dearer Than My Eye and Visit Me Once a Year. At the King David Hotel, retired British Businessman Harry Craps, 76, cheerily vacated his room to make way for the visitors. Said he: "It's for a jolly good reason."

For some, the arrival of Sadat--not to mention more than 2,000 newsmen from around the world--created visions of quick profits. Hotels were quickly booked up to capacity, and Jerusalem restaurants prepared for busy days. "I've massaged Henry Kissinger," said New York-born Steve Strauss, the King David's masseur, "and I'd like to get my hands on Sadat." Among other preparations at Ben Gurion Airport: a quick cleaning for the long red carpet down which Sadat would walk. No merchant was busier than Yitzhak Berman, 31, Jerusalem's only flag maker. He was called on to turn out 500 Egyptian flags in various sizes for display around the city. As Berman and his hard-pressed helpers rushed to get their stitching done in time, West Bank Arabs stopped outside his store, looked inside at what was going on, then strolled off, shaking their heads at the wonder of it all.

Nobody in Israel was more elated than Menachem Begin, who had responded to Sadat's statesmanlike proposal with a statesmanlike acceptance. Like Sadat, he was determined to get the peace process moving again; visiting President Carter at the White House shortly after being elected Premier, Begin grandly declared that all things between Israel and the Arabs were negotiable. Now the Israelis, who have always insisted that the best way to negotiate was face to face, were about to deal in that fashion with one of their principal adversaries.

The Premier postponed a visit to Britain to accommodate Sadat and was, reported an aide, "on a high." Begin bubbled about how he would greet Sadat, what they would say, and what languages they would say it in. "If he spoke Polish, we could speak in Polish," chuckled Begin, who would have had an unfair advantage, having been born in the Polish city of Brest Litovsk. At a meeting of the central committee of his Herut Party, Begin looked ahead to the prospect of missions of his own: "In these matters there is reciprocity. One day, God willing, I shall visit Cairo, and I shall also go to see the Pyramids." And he added, with a smile: "After all, we helped to build them."

The wonderment and euphoria in Israel was diluted only by doubts about Sadat's true intentions. Until the Egyptian advance team arrived, some Israelis wondered whether the visit would actually take place: perhaps it was all a ruse to lull Israel into complacency. Among the skeptics was the army's chief of staff, Lieut. General Mordechai Gur, who defied a gag order from Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and gave an interview to the Hebrew daily Yedioth Aharonoth, in which he offered a "worst case" scenario. Gur suggested that Sadat was preparing to launch a surprise attack on Israeli-occupied Sinai, similar to the one that started the 1973 October War. The general warned all Israelis to be "cautious and alert" while the visit was in progress.

For his brashness, Gur was reprimanded by Weizman (who later in the week was hospitalized with a broken ankle and bruises following a car accident). Top Israeli intelligence officials, however, shared Gur's concerns. They believe that Egypt has rebuilt fortifications and constructed new minefields in Sinai, stepped up military maneuvers across the Suez Canal, and carried out major exercises with the Russian-made SAM7 Strella missiles. In Washington, U.S. intelligence officials discounted the maneuver reports as "nothing new," and insisted that there had been no serious violations of the second Sinai accord reported by United Nations observers in the area.

More serious than the fleeting speculation about war were Israeli fears about the political impact of Sadat's appearance before the Knesset. Standing in the Israeli parliament, the Egyptian President would have a unique pulpit. The mere fact of his presence made him, and by extension the Arabs, seem like the true seekers for peace in the Middle East. The Israelis would be viewed as the intransigents, squabbling over details and fearful of confronting Arabs at the negotiating table. All that would add to the world pressure on Israel to move on to Geneva, where, in the Israeli view, the cards and the participants could be stacked against them. No one was more aware of these hazards, of course, than Premier Begin.

Most Arab reaction was negative, abusive and even violent. Libya broke relations with Egypt and demanded its expulsion from the Arab League. Radio Baghdad called the trip a "Pan-Arab catastrophe" and Sadat himself a traitor. Saiqa, the Syrian-backed Palestinian group vowed to assassinate Sadat for committing "the ugliest treason" in Arab history. Syria declared a day of mourning and lowered flags to half-staff. In Lebanon, where Syrian peace-keeping troops have forbidden protest demonstrations, the ban was lifted during Sadat's trip.

Egyptian embassies were attacked in four capitals. In Athens, a band of Arab protesters were chased off with gunfire that killed one of them; in Beirut, another man died when rocket fire hit the embassy; in Damascus, small bombs exploded outside the Egyptian building; in Tripoli, Libyans burned the embassy to the ground. Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, issued an order of the day: "Tighten your grips on your guns. For the next 48 hours anything can happen." Moscow, which backs Arafat and has been at odds with Sadat since he expelled Soviet advisers from Egypt, accused him of a flirtation that could lead to Middle East war once more.

Three moderate Arab states--Tunisia, Morocco and the Sudan openly endorsed the mission, however. Saudi Arabia, in a mild criticism, said the Sadat trip put the Arab world "in a precarious position." Actually, the Saudis had been briefed about the trip and its objectives by Sadat and had accepted the idea. But as head of a politically powerful Arab state and the spiritual leader of Islam, King Khalid could not remain completely silent amid all the other protests.

Arab opposition to the trip was 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 of his Arab brother since the second Sinai accord of 1975, through which Egypt regained the Abu Rudeis oilfields.

During a five-hour private meeting, Assad argued with Sadat not to go, but the two could only agree to disagree. "Unfortunately, President Assad does not agree that I should go to Jerusalem," Sadat told newsmen as he left Damascus to return to Cairo, following a chilly send-off from Assad. In a separate interview, Assad said that it was "painful that I could not convince him nor dissuade him from making the trip." Yasser Arafat also deplored the mission on the ground that it threatened Arab unity, and pleaded with Sadat to cancel the trip. The embarrassed Arafat was sitting in the Egyptian parliament as a guest when Sadat announced his willingness to visit Israel. "He looked at me and I stopped applauding," the P.L.O. leader told other Arabs.

Sadat also had to contend with unexpected opposition inside his own government. Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy, who had thought that Sadat's visit to Israel was a long-range proposal rather than an immediate prospect, resigned when the trip was suddenly scheduled. "I am firmly against it," Fahmy told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn in Cairo. Sadat immediately offered Fahmy's job to Egypt's second-ranking diplomat, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohamed Riad. But he resigned also, in what began to resemble an Egyptian Saturday Night Massacre. Sadat then named Butros Ghali, a member of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority and an economist with little foreign affairs experience, as Acting Foreign Minister. Presumably Sadat will have to name an experienced diplomat to the post. Two plausible candidates: Ambassador to Washington Ashraf Ghorbal and Esmat Abdel Meguid, Egyptian Ambassador to the U.N.

The defections among his top diplomats were not auspicious omens for Sadat's political pilgrimage, but otherwise he faced little opposition at home. Although a skilled professional, the abrasive Fahmy is widely disliked by other Arab diplomats and has no power base in Egypt--least of all in the military, which for the moment backs Sadat's initiative. So do two of Egypt's three token opposition parties. Sadat also received the endorsement of one of his country's highest ranking Muslim leaders, Grand Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud.

Sadat's decision to visit Jerusalem--assuming the Israelis were agreeable--seemed an impetuous act to some. One U.S. diplomat saw a similarity to the habits of his own boss: "Sadat gets ideas and runs with them. He's a bit like Jimmy Carter, who sometimes says more than his prudent advisers think smart." Although the timing of the trip was a distinct surprise, Sadat's determination to instigate some movement toward peace in the Middle East by a dramatic act began to take form as early as spring.

In the course of his second Middle East swing last August, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance met with Sadat at the presidential rest house in Alexandria. There he broke some discouraging news. Vance, who was sounding out Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan on ways to resume the recessed Geneva conference, told Sadat that Jerusalem had many serious misgivings and did not appear eager for a Geneva meeting this year. Menachem Begin's government was adamantly opposed to a Palestine Liberation Organization presence at negotiations. By fostering new settlements on the West Bank, the Israeli government had made clear that it would not allow the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state in the occupied land it refers to as Judea and Samaria. The U.S. estimate was that the Israelis would eventually go to Geneva, but it would be an uphill struggle merely to get them there.

Vance's gloomy estimate discouraged and disillusioned Sadat. Despite lingering Israeli suspicions of his sincerity, the Egyptian President has been by far the most accommodating Arab leader in seeking new ways to achieve peace. Another extended period of waiting for that goal was something that Egypt--and Sadat--could not endure. His country was an economic cripple, with debts of $13 billon. It is now dependent on subsidies amounting to $5.4 billion from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the other Arab oil states merely to keep going. Egypt's parlous economic situation is certainly a political hazard for Sadat. Seventy-nine people died during two days of food riots last January in Cairo and Alexandria. The violence ended only when Sadat reluctantly rolled back price increases on wheat, oil and other staples.

Maintaining that "no Arab must fear Geneva," Sadat has been amenable to almost every reasonable formula proposed for getting the parties involved back to Geneva. Although Syria balked, Egypt readily endorsed, with minor reservations, the working paper that Carter and Vance negotiated with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan between U.N. meetings in New York last month. In essence, this formula called for a united Arab delegation containing some Palestinian representation, but no known members of the P.L.O. There would be specific negotiations between six subgroups--Israel and Egypt, for example, or Israel and Syria--on the basis of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for return of occupied territories and secure borders for all states in the area.

Sadat even went out of his way to propose a resolution of the Palestinian representation problem that might satisfy Israel as well as his Arab colleagues. In a letter to Carter last August, the contents of which he disclosed to visiting U.S. Congressmen in Egypt two weeks ago, he suggested that the Palestinians at Geneva might be represented by an academic of Palestinian descent teaching at an American University. No names were mentioned, but speculation centered on three potential negotiators: Edward W. Said, 42, a Jerusalem-born professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia; Ibrahim Abu Lughod, 48, a native of Jaffa who teaches political science at Northwestern; and Walid Khalidi, a Lebanese national who is a visiting professor lecturing on Middle East affairs at Harvard. Sadat said that Yasser Arafat had agreed to his proposal. The professors have denied receiving any offers.

Increasingly impatient with the slow progress of the U.S. initiative, Sadat began to think more and more about bold ways to break the stalemate. "The Arab-Israeli conflict," he told the U.S. Congressmen, "contains 70% psychological problems and 30% substance." What Sadat wanted was a move so dramatic that it would both shock and inspire the other parties involved to return to the path of negotiations. That could be only one thing, he eventually decided: speaking over the heads of the Israeli leaders to their people about peace, and doing so in front of their own parliament.

Sadat almost casually tried out his idea on Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu during a visit to Bucharest three weeks ago. Ceausescu, who only a few days before had received Premier Begin, said he thought it was a sound idea. Sadat did not tell Carter of his idea--then or ever. He wanted the world to know that his mission was an Egyptian initiative, and not a ploy inspired by Washington. But he felt he had to tell the Saudis. Foreign Minister Fahmy, though aware of Sadat's dream, did not take the proposal seriously. Top Egyptian military commanders were also informed; they are as weary as Sadat is of another extended no-war, no-peace limbo. If the mission did not succeed, they warned him, Egypt would have no choice but to prepare for an inevitable war.

A trip to Jerusalem represented something of a reversal of Sadat's previously stated positions. As recently as February, Sadat told TIME that "as long as there is an Israeli soldier on my land I am not ready to contact anyone in Israel at all." In discussing a possible end to hostilities between Israel and Egypt, Sadat has long argued that normal relations could not be restored immediately after a peace treaty was signed. He has cited as precedent the 22 years that it took for the U.S. to acknowledge a Communist regime in Peking. Lately, however, Sadat has suggested in interviews that the evidence of real peace desired by Israel--open borders, an exchange of diplomats, trade--could take place within five years after a treaty rather than a generation. By visiting Jerusalem even before a treaty is signed or even in sight, Sadat has signaled that perhaps no such hiatus will be necessary at all.

When Sadat told the Egyptian assembly of his willingness to go to Jerusalem, he was suspected of having reverted to his rhetorical excesses of the past. In 1972, for example, he explained how an Egyptian attack on Israeli armored forces in Sinai had been aborted because of sudden "fog" over the Suez Canal. In fact, it had been a clear day, on which both sides could see forever.

At this point of swelling disbelief that Sadat was serious, Menachem Begin showed that he too could be an innovative statesman. Although he may 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.

While final negotiations for the trip were taking shape, the U.S. was on the sidelines cheering. Along with playing postman, Washington provided security and intelligence information to both parties--but carefully refrained from offering too much advice. The main fear of U.S. diplomats was that Israel might overplay its hand, which could have disastrous results; but State Department analysts also felt that Begin and Sadat understood each other and each other's needs and would get along. President Carter chatted with the two by telephone before the visit. Sadat said he was "excited, enthusiastic and confident"; the President hoped the trip would clear the way for "a just and lasting peace" and said "the eyes of the world are on you." Premier Begin thanked Carter particularly for U.S. help in expediting the invitation and the response.

As elsewhere around the world, there was deep concern in Washington about the eventual consequences of Sadat's mission. A former American diplomat who knows the Egyptian President well feared that Sadat had acted as much out of desperation as inspiration. A moderate who genuinely wants peace, Sadat may have suspected that he faced a hopeless fate at Geneva unless the format and the atmosphere were changed. He would not be able to work anything out with the Israelis, and his strategy would be vetoed by the Syrians and the Soviets at every turn. In that climate, Sadat could not survive. This veteran diplomat believes there is a chance that Sadat's gamble may succeed--if only because Begin sees the problem of Geneva in much the same way Sadat does.

The great, unanswered question about Sadat's trip is whether Geneva, all of a sudden, becomes irrelevant--and perhaps even a procedural obstacle to progress in the Middle East. Despite Sadat's solemn promise to other Arab leaders that he will not negotiate a separate peace with Israel, he and Begin will almost certainly explore the possibility of a third accord that would restore more of Sinai to Egyptian control. For his part, Begin made it clear that he does not intend to use Sadat's visit as an occasion to divide the Arabs. "We are a small country seeking peace, true peace, with true security, and we have no intention of causing division between the Arab states." But Begin would be delighted if Jordan's King Hussein, or even Syria's Assad, were to visit Jerusalem and discuss their particular problems with the Israeli government. That, of course, is unlikely to happen--at least until the dust has settled from Sadat's pioneering venture.

After 29 years of bloodshed, few people have much reason to be optimistic about the Middle East. Thus even those who hoped that Sadat's incredible mission to Jerusalem would succeed had serious reservations about its chances. Indeed, all sorts of disasters were conceivable if Sadat were to return home without a concession for Egypt, and without an encouraging message for angry Arab leaders elsewhere in the Middle East. Sadat would become an assassination target for vengeful rejectionists. He could lose the support of Egypt's military, and perhaps be ousted in a coup. If other Arab states felt that Sadat was concerned only with Egypt's particular problems, there could be a split in Arab ranks that would make Geneva--or any other forum for overall peace talks--impossible.

Even as he expressed his pain over Sadat's determination to go ahead with the sacred mission, Syria's Assad admitted that "things have changed." They certainly have. For the first time, an Arab head of state had discussed the problems of the Middle East with an Israeli leader not in secret but in the open--as equals and partners. As the Israeli daily Ha'aretz put it, in an editorial marking the occasion, there was now "a gap in the wall of Arab hostility." True peace in the Middle East will not come until that wall comes down, and until the "psychological problems" on both sides that Sadat spoke of are eradicated. To judge by the initial bitter reaction in the Arab world to last week's mission, peace may take a long time and a lot more journeys. But, thanks to the imagination and courage of Anwar Sadat, at least the gap in the wall is there.

*Sadat is the fourth head of state to address the Knesset. The others: the President of Iceland, Asgeir Asgeirsson, in 1966; the President of Malawi, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, in 1968; and the President of Costa Rica, Daniel Oduber Quiros, last year.

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