In a recent interview following his resignation as prime minister, Ehud Olmert shocked Israelis by endorsing views associated with Israel's political hard left. Among other startling declarations, he said that the reason Israel was able to reach a peace agreement with Egypt - as opposed, for example, to its futile efforts to achieve a peace accord with Arafat or with Syria's two Assad's - was not Sadat's dramatic visit to Jerusalem. The real reason is that well before Sadat's visit, Israel's celebrated chief of staff and foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, at a secret meeting with Sadat's envoy in Morocco, delivered the following message from Prime Minister Menachem Begin: First, Israel is prepared to return every last inch of Egyptian territory under Israeli occupation. Second, now let us negotiate. That is something Israel has refused to say to the Palestinians and to the Syrians and that is why all previous negotiations have gotten nowhere.
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