At Tent 101, where negotiations were conducted, Israel was forced to give up land!

Israel was forced to withdraw to the status quo ante (4 October 1973) and surrender to the Syrians control of the city of El Quneitra. In the Sinai, Israel was forced to withdraw 10 kilometers east of the Suez Canal and withdraw from Africa entirely. A diplomatic defeat was dealt out to the victors in war by the American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. The bitterness of that defeat acted like a poison that embittered the body politic here for years.

"Zionism is Racism"

The next unravelling was the appearance before the General Assembly of the late Yasser Arafat, a murdering terrorist, who broke the laws of the City and State of New York by carrying a holstered pistol to the meeting without a license. In that speech, he told the delegates that in one hand he had a pistol and in the other he had on olive branch. In truth, he never held an olive branch, but he put on a good enough show to fool millions of people. To top all this was the recognition of the PLO, a terrorist umbrella organization, as the "legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," which created a people out of a non-people on the strength of the lies of the Husseini clan, and a further resolution that condemned Zionism, the movement that built the State of Israel, as racism.

This was the signal for a strong Israeli leadership to expel United Nations personnel from Israel permanently and to take over direct control of the Arab refugee camps in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The United Nations had just declared war on Israel and did not deserve - as it does not deserve now - one square meter of land here, not to mention a presence in the most strategic spot in Jerusalem, Armon haNetziv. But the weak-kneed YitzHak Rabin, z"l, did not understand this and did not do it at all. In 1977, when his wife Leah was caught with her fingers in the cookie jar - it really was a penny ante scandal compared to the thefts of Olmert, Martin Schlaf and the late Yossi Ginosar - the anger was such that Rabin and the leftists were driven from office by a true nationalist, MenaHem Begin, z"l.

How Peace and War Both Further Unravelled the Miracle

The miracle further unravelled with two events - the "peace" treaty with Egypt and the invasion of Lebanon. Both occurred on Begin's watch.

The peace treaty appeared to be a good thing - except that Israel was forced to give up all of the Sinai Peninsula. A Pentagon study had shown years earlier that the minimum that Israel required for her security needs was control of Sharm es Sheikh (Yamit) in the south, and control of parts of the northern and central Sinai. Giving up all of the Sinai did not allow Israel her minimum requirements for security.