Sublime

Sadat became the first Arab leader to address the Knesset. He laid out five conditions for peace: Israel’s complete return to the 1967 borders, independence for the Palestinians, the right for all to live in peace and security, a commitment not to resort to arms in the future, and the end of belligerency in the Middle East. Sadat’s demands were ste

On September 28, 1978, at roughly three A.M., after hours of acrimonious debate, the Knesset voted 84 in favor, 19 opposed, and 17 abstentions; the Camp David peace agreement was approved. Begin had the beginning of his peace with Egypt. The man the British had once called terrorist number one had made peace with Israel’s most powerful enemy.

President Wilson’s belief that founding the League of Nations would be the best guarantee against future aggression by Germany—or anyone else—was not universally shared. In particular, France, led by Georges Clemenceau, the host of the Paris Peace Conference that was to bring a formal end to World War I, was preoccupied with ensuring that Germany w

Lyndon was the guy to see if you wanted to get a bill off the Calendar, Lyndon was the guy to see if you were having trouble getting it passed in the House, Lyndon was the guy to see for campaign funds. There wasn’t anything Lyndon was using these facts for as yet. But in ways not yet visible, power was starting to accumulate around him—ready to be

As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was to write: The Founding Fathers appear to have envisaged the treaty-making process as a genuine exercise in concurrent authority, in which the President and Senate would collaborate at all stages.… One third plus one of the senators … retained the power of life and death over the treaties.

Change when it arrived did so quickly and, for the most part, peacefully. Historical precedents would have predicted a violent transition. It was avoided in this instance, however, due to the leadership of two remarkable individuals. One, Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, had been a political prisoner for twenty-seven years, eighteen of w

In an America that has been focused for most of the two centuries of its existence on executive, or presidential, power, legislative power, very different, is very little understood. But the life of Lyndon Johnson is a uniquely effective prism through which to examine that kind of power. When he arrived in the Senate, that institution had for decad

By highlighting its contributions to Israel’s defense, the administration could justify pressuring Israeli leaders on peace.

A country which has lost two world wars, undergone three revolutions, committed the crimes of the Nazi era, and seen its material wealth wiped out twice in a generation, is bound to suffer from deep psychological scars. There is an atmosphere of hysteria, a tendency toward unbalanced actions. A German friend, a creative writer, said to me that Germ