The working binder of the team he headed, from the spring of 1975: drafts, memoranda and legal opinions prepared for the possibility of a comprehensive settlement and of a reconvened Geneva Conference. Many of the papers carry a small slip saying who wrote them and what the team decided.
Scan: Israel State Archives, file A-4183/10 ↗. One page of the file’s 169 is shown here; the file itself is kept at the Archives.
What the file shows, in the words on the page
25 May 1975
A draft of his own: “a proposal for a comprehensive settlement”
A six-page paper, two months after Henry KissingerU.S. National Security Adviser and Secretary of State.What they wanted: To push the Soviet Union out of the Middle East and make the United States the only broker, through step-by-step agreements.More on Henry Kissinger in “People and events” →’s shuttle was suspended. The slip attached to it reads: “The draft was written by: M. Gazit (not yet discussed in the team)”.
The paper opens: “Were it possible to achieve full and genuine peace with the Arab states at the present stage, Israel would, as is known, be prepared to go very far on the question of the territories.”
Since full peace did not then seem to him within reach, he set down as his first premise: “Peace with the Arab states will be achieved gradually.” In his summary he also counted the benefit at home: the state “will be able to direct resources to development, education and welfare. The burden of reserve duty will be eased.”
The slip stresses that the geographical points in the paper are not “an expression of consensus but only an attempt to illustrate the proposal with their help”, so they are not reproduced here (site translations).
January 1974
The rules of procedure for the Geneva Conference
The slip attached to the paper on the rules of procedure at the Geneva Conference reads: “The document was prepared by an interministerial committee (headed by M. Gazit) in January 1974” (site translation). The conference had opened in December 1973, and Israel was then preparing for its next stage.
Spring 1975
How the team worked
The slips show how the work was ordered. On a draft agreement to end the state of war: “The team discussed and approved the draft. The difference between this agreement and a peace agreement is a legal one. Written by: M. Shamgar; M. Meir RosenneLegal adviser to the Foreign Ministry.What they wanted: Precise legal texts that leave no opening for readings against Israel.More on Meir Rosenne in “People and events” →.” Meir ShamgarAttorney General; later President of the Supreme Court.More on Meir Shamgar in “People and events” → was in those years the Attorney General, and Meir Rosenne the Foreign Ministry’s Legal Adviser.
A memorandum on “the expected Arab tactics at Geneva” is marked as prepared by Y. H. Yosef Ben-AharonDiplomat; Gazit brought him into the Prime Minister’s Office during the Yom Kippur War.More on Yosef Ben-Aharon in “People and events” → “and approved by M. Gazit”, and so is a survey of the conference’s history prepared by D. Marcus (site translations).