Washington. - President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menahem Begin yesterday signed the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty at a formal White House ceremony on the North Lawn. President Jimmy Carter, whose mediating was instrumental in achieving the agreement, signed as a witness.

It was Israel’s first-ever peace treaty with a neighboring Arab state.

The signing represented the dramatic culmination of 16 months of arduous negotiations beginning with Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. All three men, during their remarks delivered at the simple but moving one-hour ceremony, stressed the significance of the occasion, but they also acknowledged the pitfalls on the road ahead.

"Today we celebrate a victory," President Carter declared, "not of a bloody military campaign, but of an inspiring peace campaign."

Prime Minister Begin said it was the third "greatest day in my life," explaining that the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, and the unification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day-War were the first and second greatest days of his life.

Sadat omitted at the last minute a powerful call for Palestinian rights from the text of his address at the White House ceremony. His speech as delivered made no specific reference to the Palestinians, although the prepared text distributed to newsmen earlier had contained a strong appeal to President Carter and the U.S. to support the Palestinians’ aspirations for "self-determination and statehood" and to ensure the full implementation of the autonomy plan. "There must be a genuine transfer of authority to the Palestinians in their land. Without that the problem will remain unsolved."

While Sadat made no reference to Begin, but dwelt on President Carter’s role in "performing the miracle," the Israeli leader paid generous tribute to Sadat as a man of "great civil courage" and referred to him as "our friend."

But Sadat did have praise for "the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who remained unwavering in their commitment to peace" - a clear reference to the "Peace Now" movement which, Sadat believes, had a major impact on Israeli policy making.

President Carter called on other Arab states to join the peace process. "I am convinced," he said, "that other Arab people need and want peace; but some of their leaders are not yet willing to honor these needs and desires."

Begin’s speech was in many ways the most moving - certainly the most personalized - of the three. He recalled his parents who had perished in the Holocaust, and his voice almost cracked as he declaimed in sonorous tones the words (in Hebrew) of Psalm 126.

Begin spoke of the peace treaty as "the cornerstone of cooperation and friendship" between Israel and Egypt. He, alone among the three leaders, did not dwell on the challenges and difficulties that still lie ahead, nor refer to the common pledge to reach a comprehensive settlement that would embrace Israel’s other fronts.

There was however, one common reference in all three addresses: Isaiah’s immortal swords-into-ploughshares prophesy.

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