Begin Won’t Meet With Carter

Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin on Wednesday turned down a request by former President Jimmy Carter to meet in Jerusalem today, the eighth anniversary of their signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, Begin’s spokesman said.

Yechiel Kadishai said the meeting was requested by Carter, who is on a tour of the Middle East.

“Mr. Begin asked me to tell the people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he can’t see him, that’s all. He didn’t give any reason,” Kadishai said.

Begin, 73, met Carter during his last visit to Israel in March, 1983, but let it be known that the former President had hurt him with unflattering remarks in a newspaper interview and in Carter’s autobiography, “Keeping Faith.”

Asked if Begin harbored a dislike for Carter, Kadishai said, “He didn’t say a word about dislike.”

Begin, apparently depressed over his wife’s death and by rising Israeli casualties in the Lebanon war, resigned as Israeli prime minister in August, 1983, and withdrew from public life.

However, Begin has greeted other visitors to Israel at his home in Jerusalem.

“He is meeting people, not many, but he meets people whom he wants to meet,” Kadishai said.

Begin, Carter and the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed Israel’s first and only peace treaty with an Arab country in a White House ceremony on March 26, 1979.

During Carter’s last visit to Israel, officials expressed annoyance over news that he met representatives in Egypt of the Palestine Liberation Organization, regarded by Israel as an enemy bent on its destruction.

At the time, Begin was Carter’s host at a state banquet but cancelled their dinner speeches, apparently to avoid being drawn into a public debate.