These documents cover the period from January 1977 through March 1979 and were produced by the CIA to support the Carter administration’s diplomatic efforts leading up to President Carter’s negotiations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David in September 1978. The declassified documents detail diplomatic developments from the Arab peace offensive and President Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem through the regionwide aftermath of Camp David.
From a file dated February 1977:
In this CIA documents, an early February 1977 Intelligence
Memorandum analyses the upcoming election in Israel. Most of the document's
details are devoted to the Labor Alignment and the "key judgments"
include "a victory by the ruling Labor Alignment is by no means
ensured…the Labour Party will, at best, lose some seats".
Most
interestingly, "a growing possibility" is a Labor and right-wing
Likud bloc "national unity government". Due to Yigal Yadin's
Democratic Movement for Change, the report identifies "serious inroads
into Labor's traditional strength". The result of this is that the Labor
Alignment "is at present running not better that even with, and may be
trailing" the Likud. As such, the final election "scenario" is a
"government of the right led by Likud with Begin as prime
minister".
If this occurs, the report sees that "at a minimum,
strong and sustained US pressure would be needed to extract concessions from a
Begin government."
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