However, Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, "he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby."
In a 1992 memoir, Profits of War, Ari Ben-Menashe, an Israeli military intelligence officer who worked with Likud, agreed that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt and wanted him out of office.
"Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David," relinquishing the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty, Ben-Menashe wrote. "As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel's back."
Carter also recognized how much Israel's Likud leadership wanted to deny him a second term. Questioned by congressional investigators in 1992, Carter said he realized by April 1980 that "Israel cast their lot with Reagan," according to notes I found among the unpublished documents in the files of a House task force on the so-called October Surprise controversy.
Carter traced the Israeli opposition to his reelection to a "lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs."
To prevent a Palestinian state and buy time for Israel to further "change the facts on the ground" by moving more Jewish settlers onto the West Bank, Begin felt Carter's re-election had to be prevented. The Likud also believed that Reagan would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon.
The Likud-Republican collaboration reportedly led to Israel becoming a go-between for the Reagan campaign's secret contacts with Iran, helping to prevent Carter from resolving the U.S.-Iranian hostage crisis and dooming his re-election hopes.
The so-called "October Surprise" mystery of 1980 -- whether Begin's government did assist Republicans in thwarting Carter's hostage negotiations with Iran -- was hotly disputed when it emerged as an issue a decade later. Republicans and pro-Israeli propagandists sought to discredit the inquiry, often with the help of timid Democrats. [For more on this history, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com's "New October Surprise Series."]
Asking Shamir
That was the context in which I met Yitzhak Shamir in 1993, after I was asked by a documentary film team to assist in an interview with him.
I wasn't expecting much new information about the October Surprise story, but Shamir was an unpredictable figure. He also had served as Israel's foreign minister in 1980 and succeeded Begin as prime minister in 1983, putting him in positions where he might well know what happened.
During the interview, Shamir told the documentarians that the Iranian revolution in 1979 had "constituted a danger for us. ... We are worried all the time about what is going on there." Iran had been a key Israeli ally under the Shah before radical Islamists took power and dubbed Israel "the little Satan" to America's "great Satan."
As for restoring some relations with the new Islamist government in 1980, Shamir said, "We did what we could. ... This was the principle. I don't know many details about it. I was not involved in the details, and, you know, I am used to forgetting details."
But Shamir had a startling assessment of the larger October Surprise issue. "I know about all the efforts of the Carter administration," he said. "And, well, I read this interesting book of Gary Sick's," a reference to the 1991 book, October Surprise, in which former National Security Council aide Gary Sick made the case for believing the Republicans had disrupted the hostage negotiations before the 1980 election.
With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, "What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?"
"Of course, it was," Shamir responded without hesitation. "It was."
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