Summary
Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a participant in the secret negotiations with King Abdullah, whose book Between Israel and the nations is a principal source in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace for how the substantive talks were moved from Rhodes to the King’s winter palace at Shouneh (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.47, p.49).
Details
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Eytan was among the Jewish participants in the meetings with Abdullah in Amman and at al-Shouneh, together with Eliyahu Sasson, Moshe Dayan, Yehoshafat Harkabi and others (PDF p.47).
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His book’s account of the Rhodes talks: the Jordanian delegation “seemed lost and hopeless” and lacked clear instructions; the King hinted he lacked confidence in them, and it was agreed that for outward appearance the negotiations would continue in Rhodes, but the substantive negotiations would take place secretly with the King himself in his winter palace in Shouneh, known only to his closest confidantes (PDF p.49).
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Eytan, with Dayan, praises Abdullah al-Tal for his honesty in his disclosures about the negotiations (PDF p.47).
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His Between Israel and the nations is also the book’s target on the refugees: Eytan states (p.123) that Arab propaganda converted the refugee problem into “political obstacle on Israel’s path in the first decade of its existence”, and (p.112) that “The refugee problem would not exist at all if the Arab states had not gone to war in 1948 and if they had not ordered these people to leave their homes” — a presentation the book then answers with Jarjora’s Knesset speech, Deir Yassin, Plan Dalet and the expulsions of 1949-1959 (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.84-86).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Amir Abdullah, Abdullah al-Tal, Moshe Dayan