Camp David accords

Camp David Accords Click here for more free books!

The Camp David Accords, which outlined a framework for a comprehensive Middle East peace, were initialed on 17 September 1978 by U.S. president Jimmy Carter, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat following a two‐week conference at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. The Camp David process began in November 1977, when Sadat made an unprecedented visit to Israel, where he told Israeli leaders that Egypt was willing to make a lasting peace if they were willing to withdraw from Arab territory occupied during the 1967 and 1973 wars. Despite encouragement from Washington, the Israeli‐Egyptian negotiations stalled during the spring of 1978, prompting Carter to invite Sadat and Begin to Camp David in September.

Adopting a low‐key approach, Carter was able to make surprising progress on the bilateral Israeli‐Egyptian front. The Israelis indicated that, in return for a formal peace treaty with Egypt, they would pull their troops out of the Sinai Desert and would also dismantle the handful of Jewish settlements recently established in the troubled isthmus. The major sticking point was the fate of the Israeli‐occupied West Bank, an oblong bulge of Jordanian territory that 800,000 Palestinians called home. Fearing that he would be branded a traitor who had sold out the Arab cause if he agreed to a bilateral Egyptian‐Israeli peace treaty without resolving the Palestinian dilemma, Sadat insisted that Begin agree to autonomy for the West Bank Arabs. Unwilling to abandon territory that had been part of ancient Israel and that was now also home to several thousand Jewish settlers, Begin adamantly refused to accept the principle of Palestinian self‐determination on the West Bank. With the two sides deadlocked and the Camp David conference on the verge of collapse, Carter brokered an eleventh‐hour compromise by arranging two parallel but separate agreements, one on the Sinai and the other on the West Bank. Sadat pledged to recognize Israel and to sign a formal peace treaty with Begin in return for an Israeli promise to withdraw from the Sinai. Begin agreed temporarily to suspend Israeli settlements on the West Bank and promised to negotiate “new arrangements” with “representatives of the Palestinian people.”

Implementing the Camp David Accords, however, proved more difficult than Carter and his advisers had imagined. To be sure, the lure of a multi‐billion‐dollar U.S. aid package and the promise that several hundred American troops would monitor the Sinai frontier helped persuade Sadat and Begin to sign a peace treaty in Washington on 26 March 1979, and within three years all Israeli troops and settlers had departed from Egyptian soil. But the West Bank negotiations were stillborn, largely because the Palestinian clauses in the Camp David agreements were subject to radically different interpretations by the Israelis, the Arabs, and the Americans. During the next decade, Begin and his successor, Yitzhak Shamir, expanded the number of Israeli settlements on the West Bank dramatically; the Palestinians responded by launching an uprising—the Intifada—in late 1987, and the peace process stalemated, resuming in earnest only after Yitzhak Rabin was elected prime minister in 1992. The Oslo peace accords hammered out between 1993 to 1995, whereby the Israelis agreed ultimately to grant self‐government to the Palestinians on the West Bank, had their roots in the Camp David Accords of 1978.

[See also Middle East, U.S. Involvement in the.]

Bibliography

• Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, 1982.
• Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab‐Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan, 1985.
• William Quandt, Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics, 1986

Two parallel but separate agreements signed on September 17, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter, who mediated the negotiations, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, after a two-week conference at Camp David, Maryland, to establish a Middle East peace. In the first agreement, Sadat pledged to recognize Israel and sign a peace treaty if Begin promised to withdraw Israeli troops from the Sinai. In the second, Begin agreed to suspend Israeli settlements on the West Bank until further negotiations with Palestinian representatives. The West Bank negotiations were unfulfilled, largely because of each country's interpretation of the Palestinian clauses in the agreements.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

For more information on Camp David Accords, visit Britannica.com.

From September 4 to 17, 1978, President Jimmy Carter held meetings at Camp David with Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel. These negotiations led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The proceedings were kept secret and the delegations from both nations remained at Camp David throughout the sessions, ensuring no premature newspaper leaks about the substance of the talks.

President Carter negotiated separately with Sadat and Begin, shuttling between their cabins. Carter and his diplomatic team then produced drafts of agreements and modified them to take each side's objections into account. Carter oversaw every aspect of the negotiations.

Carter's own position adhered to United Nations Resolution 242, which instructed Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab territory and Arab nations to recognize and make peace with Israel. Carter's proposals included Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, an autonomous “homeland” for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, an end to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and a five-year transitional period in which the final status of the West Bank would be determined. In return, there would be an end to the Egyptian economic boycott of Israel and full recognition. Egypt would also give Israel navigation rights through the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran. The borders existing before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war would be restored.

Sadat was willing to go along with most of these proposals, but he also wanted reparations from Israel for the occupation of Egyptian territory and for oil it had taken from the Sinai. Israel was willing to withdraw from the Sinai and insisted that most of it be demilitarized but wished to keep some military facilities in the area as well as some of its settlements. Israelis would give the Palestinians administrative self-rule but wanted to retain the right to buy land and settle on the West Bank. Israel also expressed interest in a mutual defense treaty with the United States, an idea rebuffed by Carter.

The main disagreements were between Carter and Begin. Carter argued that international borders could not be changed, while Begin insisted that the 1967 war gave Israel the right to change its frontiers. Carter claimed that West Jerusalem was part of the West Bank; Begin insisted it was an integral part of Israel. Carter wanted a freeze on Israeli settlements; Begin resisted. The Israeli leader insisted that Carter honor a pledge made by President Gerald Ford: that the United States would coordinate with Israel any American proposal for a peace settlement before submitting it to the Arabs. Carter rejected this approach to the negotiations.

Begin made a number of concessions to Carter. These included agreeing to the principle of Egyptian sovereignty in the Sinai and to complete Israeli withdrawal from all military facilities and all settlements in the Sinai.

Sadat and Carter were in substantial agreement on most issues, and the two men became close friends as the conference proceeded. Sadat made a number of concessions to Carter, which alienated some of his own delegation, including his foreign minister (who resigned at the end of the conference). They believed that Sadat had made too many concessions to the Americans and had been outmaneuvered by the Israelis.

On September 17, the Camp David Accords were signed. The accords included a Framework for Peace in the Middle East and a Framework for Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel, together with Accompanying Letters exchanged between President Carter and the two leaders. Israel withdrew from Arab territories and dismantled settlements in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. It recognized the principle that there were Palestinian rights to be negotiated in the future. Egypt made peace with the Jewish state and formally recognized it. It agreed to limit its military presence in the Sinai and recognized that Israel had legitimate security interests subject to negotiation.

Carter appointed Robert Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as a Presidential special envoy to the Middle East to implement the agreement. After intensive negotiations, Sadat and Begin traveled to Washington and signed a peace treaty on March 26, 1979. For their efforts, the two men shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

See also Carter, Jimmy

Sources

• George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990).
• William Quandt, Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986)

Camp David Peace Accords, a set of agreements between Egypt and Israel signed on 17 September 1978. The agreements were the culmination of years of negotiations for peace in the Middle East. Acting as a peace broker, President Jimmy Carter convinced Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to reach a compromise in their disputes.

Peace in the Middle East had been a goal of the international community for much of the preceding thirty years. After a year of stalled talks, President Sadat announced in November 1977 that he would visit Israel and personally address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Speaking to the Knesset, Sadat announced his desire for peace between Egypt and Israel. While a seemingly small statement, it was a substantial step forward in the Middle East peace process. Up to that point, Egypt and its Arab allies had rejected Israel's right to exist. Despite Sadat's gesture, the anticipated renewal of negotiations failed to materialize.

In the following months, after several unsuccessful attempts to renew talks, President Carter invited Begin and Sadat to the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. After twelve days of talks, the leaders reached two agreements: "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel." The first treaty addressed the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas of land that Israel had occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. The agreement provided for a transitional period, during which the interested parties would reach a settlement on the status of the territories. The second accord provided that Egypt and Israel would sign a peace treaty within three months. It also arranged for a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula and the dismantling of Israeli settlements there. In exchange, Egypt promised to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

While the two nations faced difficulty implementing many details, the Camp David Peace Accords represented an important step in the Middle East peace process. On 26 March 1979, Israel and Egypt signed their historic peace treaty in Washington, D.C., hosted by President Carter. It was an important moment for Middle East peace and the crowning achievement in Carter's foreign policy.

Bibliography

Dayan, Moshe. Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt– Israel Peace Negotiations. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Kamel, Mohamed Ibrahim. The Camp David Accords: A Testimony. London: KPI, 1986.

Quandt, William B. Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986.

—Stephanie Wilson McConnell

Agreements signed by Egypt, Israel, and the United States on 17 September 1978.

In November 1977, Egyptian president Anwar alSadat shocked the world by announcing his readiness to travel to Israel to resolve the Arab - Israel conflict, and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin promptly issued an invitation. Sadat's visit to Israel on 19 and 20 November included an electrifying speech before the Knesset and inaugurated a series of unprecedented direct Egyptian - Israeli peace negotiations. The talks bogged down, however, over Israel's withdrawal from and Egypt's demilitarization of the Sinai and the future status of Gaza and the West Bank (all occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war), and over terms of normalization between Israel and Egypt. When it appeared that the negotiations would collapse, U.S. president Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Begin to the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

The Camp David conference, 5 through 17 September 1978, ended with two accords signed by Egypt, Israel, and the United States: "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel." Participants included the three leaders, their foreign and defense ministers, and teams of top civilian and military officials. Sadat and Begin's acrimonious relationship threatened to derail the conference, but President Carter's personal intervention saved it from failure. Sadat and Begin later received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The relatively straightforward framework for an Egypt - Israel peace embraced UN Security Council Resolution 242 and called for a treaty implementing the land-for-peace principle: Israel would return the Sinai to Egypt and Egypt would make peace with Israel. Also anticipated was the full normalization of diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations. The Egyptian - Israeli Peace Treaty of 26 March 1979 conformed to these September 1978 expectations.

With its complex and problematic formula for Palestinian self-rule, the framework for Middle East peace was crucial to Sadat's defense against Arab charges that he had sold the Palestinians short by making a separate peace with Israel. The other Arab states were invited to follow Sadat to the negotiating table. This framework envisioned Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and representatives of the Palestinians negotiating a five-year, three-stage plan for the future of Gaza and the West Bank, including full autonomy for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza; the withdrawal of Israel's military government and civilian administration; the election of a self-governing Palestinian authority; and the redeployment of Israeli forces. Final-status negotiations during the five-year transitional period would resolve the disposition of the West Bank and Gaza, the refugee problem, and the entire Israeli - Palestinian conflict in a manner that would "recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements."

The Camp David Accords were not without opposition. The Knesset ratified the agreements, but more members of the opposition than of the prime minister's coalition supported them. Those who abstained or voted against them scored Begin for accepting the precedent of territorial concessions for peace and for recognizing the Palestinian people as a negotiating partner. In Egypt, opposition elements, including Islamic, Nasserist, and other Arab nationalist groups, protested the peace negotiations with Israel. No Arab states supported the accords, and the Palestinians, aware of Begin's extremely narrow interpretation of "full autonomy," rejected them and demanded statehood. The refusal of the Palestinians and Jordan (the latter mentioned no less than fifteen times in the document) to cooperate with Egypt and Israel made the "Framework for Peace in the Middle East" a dead letter. Dependent only upon the actions of Egypt and Israel themselves, however, the second of Camp David's two frameworks - "For the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel" - came to fruition in the signing of the Egyptian - Israeli Peace Treaty of March 1979.

Bibliography

Bar-Siman-Tov, Yaacov. Israel and the Peace Process,1977 - 1982: In Search of Legitimacy for Peace. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam, 1982.

Dayan, Moshe. Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt - Israel Peace Negotiations. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981.

Eisenberg, Laura Zittrain, and Caplan, Neil. NegotiatingArab - Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, and Possibilities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Kamel, Mohammed Ibrahim. The Camp David Accords: A Testimony. London: Kegan Paul, 1986.

Quandt, William B. Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1986.

Telhami, Shibley. Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

— DON PERETZ UPDATED BY LAURA Z. EISENBERG

Celebrating the signing of the Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter, Anwar El Sadat.

The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David.^[1] The two agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter. The Accords led directly to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. They also resulted in Sadat and Begin sharing the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

Contents 1 Background 1.1 The Sadat Peace Initiative 2 The talks 3 Terms of the agreements 4 Consequences 5 Criticism of the Accords 5.1 Public support 6 External links 7 See also 8 Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties 9 References 10 Notes

Background

Upon assuming office on January 20, 1977, President Carter moved to rejuvenate the Middle Eastern peace process that had stalled throughout the 1976 presidential campaign in the United States. Following the advice of a Brookings Institution report, Carter opted to replace the incremental, bilateral peace talks which had characterized Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy following the 1973 Yom Kippur War with a comprehensive, multilateral approach. This new approach called for the reconvening of the 1973 Geneva Conference, this time with a Palestinian delegation, in hopes of negotiating a final settlement, however this never materialized.

Carter also wasted no time in visiting the heads-of-state on whom he would have to rely to make any peace agreement feasible. By the end of his first year in office, he had already met with Anwar El Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. However, the United States still feared some action by Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Albania who had fought on the Egyptian and Syrian side. They were also members of the Warsaw Pact. Other Arab nations like Libya, Syria, and Lebanon as well as others also weren't too glad to see the United States trying to get Egypt to make peace with Israel. Many Arab terrorist groups also threatened to launch attacks against Egypt if they signed a peace treaty with Israel. As a precaution, the NATO armies were mobilized for war. Carter's and Vance's exploratory meetings gave him a basic plan for reinvigorating the peace process based on the Geneva Conference and Israeli withdrawal on all fronts, including the West Bank. The political situation in Israel underwent a dramatic upheaval with a devastating electoral loss of the long-ruling Alignment (the forerunner of the Israeli Labour Party) to Menachem Begin's Likud in May 1977. While Begin officially favored the reconvention of the conference, perhaps even more vocally than Rabin, and even accepted the Palestinian presence, in actuality the Israelis and the Egyptians were secretly formulating a framework for bilateral talks. Even earlier, Begin had not been opposed to returning the Sinai, but a major future obstacle was his firm refusal to consider relinquishing control over the West Bank.^[2]

The Sadat Peace Initiative

President Anwar El Sadat came to feel that the Geneva track peace process was more show than substance, and was not progressing, partly due to disagreements with his Arab (mainly Syria, Libya, and Iraq) and his communist allies. He also lacked confidence in the Western powers to pressure Israel after a meeting with the Western leaders. His frustration boiled over, and after clandestine preparatory meetings between Egyptian and Israeli officials, unknown even to the NATO countries, in November 1977 Anwar El Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel, thereby implicitly recognizing Israel.

The Sadat visit came about after he delivered a speech in Egypt stating that he would travel anywhere, "even Jerusalem," to discuss peace.^[3] That speech led the Begin government to declare that, if Israel thought that Sadat would accept an invitation, Israel would invite him.

In Sadat's Knesset speech he talked about his views on peace, the status of Israel's occupied territories, and the Palestinian refugee problem. This tactic went against the intentions of both the West and the East, which were to revive the Geneva Conference. Hungarian leader Janos Kadar threatened war with Egypt if they signed a peace agreement with Israel. Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Albania followed. Yugoslavia and East Germany also threatened to attack Egypt if they did not revoke their recognition of Israel. The Soviet Union, Poland, Finland, and Romania didn't threaten war, but they would enter Egypt should NATO armies intervene. Libya, Iraq, Syria, and other Arab nations called Egypt a traitor, and said they would support an Eastern invasion by any means possible, even by military action.

The gesture stemmed from an eagerness to enlist the help of the NATO countries in improving the ailing Egyptian economy, a belief that Egypt should begin to focus more on its own interests than on the interests of the Arab world, and a hope that an agreement with Israel would catalyze similar agreements between Israel and her other Arab neighbors and help solve the Palestinian problem. Prime Minister Begin's response to Sadat's initiative, though not what Sadat or Carter had hoped, demonstrated a willingness to engage the Egyptian leader. Like Sadat, Begin also saw many reasons why bilateral talks would be in his country's best interests. It would afford Israel the opportunity to negotiate only with Egypt instead of with a larger Arab delegation that might try to use its size to make unwelcome or unacceptable demands. Israel felt Egypt could help protect Israel from other Arabs and Eastern communists. In addition, the commencement of direct negotiations between leaders – summit diplomacy – would distinguish Egypt from her Arab neighbors. The basic message of Sadat's speech at the Knesset were the request for the implementation of Resolutions 242 and 338. Sadat’s visit was the first step to negotiations such as the preliminary Cairo Conference in December 1977 and ultimately the Camp David Accords.

The talks

Begin and Brzezinski playing chess at Camp David.

Accompanied by their capable negotiating teams and with their respective interests in mind, both leaders converged on Camp David for thirteen days of tense and dramatic negotiations from September 5-17, 1978. By all accounts, Carter's relentless drive to achieve peace and his reluctance to allow the two men to leave without reaching an agreement are what played the decisive role in the success of the talks. Numerous times both the Egyptian and Israeli leaders wanted to scrap negotiations, only to be lured back into the process by personal appeals from Carter. Begin and Sadat had such mutual antipathy toward one another that they only seldom had direct contact; thus Carter had to conduct his own microcosmic form of shuttle diplomacy by holding one-on-one meetings with either Sadat or Begin in one cabin, then returning to the cabin of the third party to relay the substance of his discussions.

President Carter, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance at Camp David.

A particularly difficult situation arose on the tenth stalemated day of the talks. The issues of Israeli settlement withdrawal from the Sinai and the status of the West Bank created what seemed to be an impasse. Begin and Sadat were “literally not on speaking terms,” and “claustrophobia was setting in." In response, Carter had the choice of trying to salvage the agreement by conceding the issue of the West Bank to Begin, while advocating Sadat’s less controversial position on the removal of all settlements from the Sinai Peninsula. Or he could have refused to continue the talks, reported the reasons for their failure, and allowed Begin to bear the brunt of the blame. Carter chose to continue and for three more days negotiated. During this course, Carter even took the two leaders to the nearby Gettysburg National Military Park in the hopes of using the American Civil War as a simile to their own struggle.^{[citation needed]}

Terms of the agreements

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledge applause during a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., during which President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp David Accords, 18 September 1978.

There were two 1978 Camp David agreements A Framework for Peace in the Middle East and A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel, the second leading towards the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in March 1979. The agreements and the peace treaty were both accompanied by "side-letters" of understanding between Egypt and the U.S. and Israel and the U.S.^[4]

The first agreement had three parts. The first part was a framework for negotiations to establish an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and the Gaza strip and to fully implement SC 242. It was less clear than the agreements concerning the Sinai, and was later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the United States. The fate of Jerusalem was deliberately excluded from this agreement^[5].

The second part dealt with Egyptian-Israeli relations, the real content being in the second agreement. The third part "Associated Principles" declared principles that should apply to relations between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors.

The second agreement outlined a basis for the peace treaty six months later, in particular deciding the future of the Sinai peninsula. Israel agreed to withdraw its armed forces from the Sinai, evacuate its 4,500 civilian inhabitants, and restore it to Egypt in return for normal diplomatic relations with Egypt, guarantees of freedom of passage through the Suez Canal and other nearby waterways (such as the Straits of Tiran), and a restriction on the forces Egypt could place on the Sinai peninsula, especially within 20-40 km from Israel. Israel also agreed to limit its forces a smaller distance (3 km) from the Egyptian border, and to guarantee free passage between Egypt and Jordan. With the withdrawal, Israel also returned Egypt's Abu-Rudeis oil fields in western Sinai, which contained long term, commercially productive wells.

The agreement also resulted in the United States committing to several billion dollars worth of annual subsidies to the governments of both Israel and Egypt, subsidies which continue to this day, and are given as a mixture of grants and aid packages committed to purchasing U.S. materiel. From 1979 (the year of the peace agreement) to 1997, Egypt received military aid of US$1.3 billion annually, which also helped modernize the Egyptian military.^[6] (This is beyond economic, humanitarian, and other aid, which has totaled more than US$25 billion.) Eastern-supplied until 1979, Egypt now received American weaponry such as the M1A1 Abrams Tank, AH-64 Apache gunship and the F-16 fighter jet. In comparison, Israel has received $3 billion annually since 1985 in grants and military aid packages.^[7]

Consequences

According to The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East:

"The normalization of relations [between Israel and Egypt] went into effect in January 1980. Ambassadors were exchanged in February. The boycott laws were repealed by Egypt's National Assembly the same month, and some trade began to develop, albeit less than Israel had hoped for. In March 1980 regular airline flights were inaugurated. Egypt also began supplying Israel with crude oil"^[8].

The time that has elapsed since the Camp David Accords has left no doubt as to their enormous ramifications on Middle Eastern politics. Most notably, the perception of Egypt within the Arab world changed. With the most powerful of the Arab militaries and a history of leadership in the Arab world under Nasser, Egypt had more leverage than any of the other Arab states to advance Arab interests. One key point of criticism was at concluding a peace treaty without demanding greater concessions for Israeli recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination. Egypt was also suspended from the Arab League from 1979 until 1989.

United States President Jimmy Carter greeting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House shortly after the Camp David Accords went into effect, 8 April 1980.

The Camp David Accords also prompted the disintegration of a united Arab front in opposition to Israel. Egypt's realignment created a power vacuum that Saddam Hussein of Iraq, at one time only a secondary power, hoped to fill. Because of the vague language concerning the implementation of Resolution 242, the Palestinian problem became the primary issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict immediately following the Camp David Accords (and arguably, until today). Many of the Arab nations blamed Egypt for not putting enough pressure on Israel to deal with the Palestinian problem in a way that would be satisfactory to them.

Although most Israelis supported the Accords, the Israeli settler movement opposed them. Because Sadat would not agree to a treaty in which Israel had any presence in the Sinai Peninsula at all, Israel had to withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula.^[9]. Israeli settlers living in there tried to prevent the government from dismantling their settlements.^[10]

Lastly, the biggest consequence of all may be in the psychology of the participants of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The success of Begin, Sadat, and Carter at Camp David demonstrated to other Arab states and entities that negotiations with Israel were possible — that progress results only from sustained efforts at communication and cooperation. Despite the disappointing conclusion of the 1993 Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, and even though the 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace has not fully normalized relations with Israel, both of these significant developments had little chance of occurring without the precedent set by Camp David.

Criticism of the Accords

For Israel, perhaps the most evident tangible benefit of the agreement with Egypt (other than the subsequent U.S. aid, which Egypt also received) was a peaceful mutual border, enabling the Israel Defense Forces to reduce their levels of alert on Israel's southwestern frontier. Although both sides generally abided by the agreements since 1978, in the following years a common belief emerged in Israel that the peace with Egypt is a "cold peace." There are Israelis who feel that Egypt is adhering only to letter and not the spirit of the agreement, particularly with the clauses concerning normalization of relations between the two countries. Others feel that the Peace agreement was between the Israeli people and Egypt's charismatic President Anwar El Sadat, rather than with the Egyptian people, who were not given the opportunity to accept or reject the agreement with a free vote or a representative majority. However, it was initially supported by the vast majority.^[11] While the treaty was approved by a parliament majority in Israel, which has a multi-candidate, Multi-party electoral system, Egypt has had a semi-presidential system with a single candidate government since 1953.

Further supporting this claim is the fact that although Israeli tourists flocked to Egypt, few Egyptians returned the gesture: in the peak year, 1999, 415,000 Israelis visited Egypt. The highest number of Egyptians visiting Israel was 28,000, in 1995.^{[citation needed]} (While the disparity is undoubtedly attributable in part to Egyptian average income being lower, it is also worth noting that Israel's population is 6 million while Egypt's is 71 million). Approximately 1.8 million Egyptians travel abroad every year,^[12] while in 2006 2 million Israelis traveled abroad,^[13] indicating that a significantly higher percentage of Israeli travelers visit Egypt than the percentage of Egyptian travelers who visit Israel.

According to the BBC,^[14][15] New York Times,^[16] the Middle East Media Research Institute,^[17] Anti-Defamation League,^{[18][19][20][21]} and former Israeli diplomat to Egypt Ephraim Dowek,^[22] anti-Semitic themes and cartoons still appear in the Egyptian media. These themes include Holocaust denial, accusations that Jews committed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, imagery of Jews as Satanic figures, equating Jews with Nazis, imagery of Jews with hooked noses, and resurfacing the blood libel against Jews. Abdullah Schliefer, director of Television Studies at American University of Cairo, explains that "it's not real racial anti-Semitism," but rather "just a stupid knee-jerk reaction to the Arab-Israeli conflict."^[14]

Egypt has mediated several unofficial cease fire understandings between Israel and the Palestinians. There have been many popular protests in Egypt against peace with Israel (from all levels of society, up to and including intellectuals, students and democratization movements such as Kifaya). These typically intensify following Israeli actions in its conflicts with the Palestinians and Lebanon, which Israel views as self defence, but are seen in Egypt as harsh repression of Arabs.

Public support

According to an Egyptian Government 2006, poll of 1000 Egyptians (taken at the time of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict) 92% of Egyptians view Israel as an enemy nation.^[23][24] However, the treaty was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians on the day it was signed.^[11] In Israel, there is lasting support of the Camp David Peace Accords, which have become a national consensus, supported by 85% of Israelis according to a 2001 poll taken by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Israel based).^[25] Nevertheless, a minority of Israelis believe the price Israel paid for the peace agreement was too high for its present gains, i.e. having relinquished the entire Sinai Peninsula, with its oil, tourism and land resources (Israel has no other oil wells), and the trauma of evacuating thousands of its Israeli inhabitants (many resisted, as in the town of Yamit and had to be forcefully evacuated, a phenomenon encountered also in the subsequent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, known as the disengagement).

External links

• Text of the Accords, Israeli government
• Text of Accords and additional material, Carter Library
• 2006 Egyptian public poll on attitudes to Israel and other countries, NY Sun Article. Alternate link to poll results from a BBC News Article
• The Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation
• Jaffe Center Poll on Israeli public Attitudes to the Peace Process
• NY Times: Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV

See also

• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• 1956 Suez War
• 1967 Six Day War
• 1970 War of Attrition
• 1973 Yom Kippur War
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Proposals for a Palestinian state
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Arab League and the Arab-Israeli conflict

Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties

• Paris Peace Conference, 1919
• Faisal-Weizmann Agreement (1919)
• 1949 Armistice Agreements
• Camp David Accords (1978)
• Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty (1979)
• Madrid Conference of 1991
• Oslo Accords (1993)
• Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace (1994)
• Camp David 2000 Summit
• Peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs
• List of Middle East peace proposals
• International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict

References

• Armstrong, Karen. Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
• Bregman, Ahron Elusive Peace: How the Holy Land Defeated America.
• Eran, Oded. "Arab-Israel Peacemaking." Sela.
• Gold, Dore. The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007.
• Meital, Yoram. Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977.
• "Arab-Israel Conflict." Sela.
• Sela, Avraham, ed. The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. New York: Continuum, 2002.
• Adam Curtis' 2004 documentary The Power of Nightmares, in its 2nd and 3rd part, studies the Camp David Accords from the point of view of fundamentalist Muslims.

Notes

1. ^ Camp David Accords - Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2. ^ George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, Duke University Press, 1990 p.164. ISBN 0822309726. From Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor 1977-1981, (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1983), p.88.

   [Carter] outlined to Begin his program, which consisted of five points: (1) achieve a comprehensive peace affecting all of Israel’s neighbors: (2) peace to be based on UN Resolution 242: (3) peace would involve open borders and free trade; (4) peace would call for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories to secure borders; (5) a Palestinian entity (but not an independent nation) should be created. Begin responded that he could accept all of these points accept the Palestinian entity.

3. ^ Feron, James. "Menachem Begin, Guerrilla Leader Who Became Peacemaker." The New York Times. 9 March 1992. 15 February 2009.
4. ^ "The Camp David Accords." Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. 21 July 2001. 28 April 2008.
5. ^ Gold, 175
6. ^ "Egypt" U.S. Department of State. March 2008. 28 April 2008.
7. ^ Benhorin, Yitzhak. "Israel still top recipient of US foreign aid." Ynetnews. 2 August 2007. 28 April 2008.
8. ^ Sela, "Arab-Israel Conflict," 100
9. ^ Sela, "Sinai Peninsula," 774
10. ^ Armstrong, 414
11. ^ ^{a b} Vatikiotis, P.J. (1992). The History of Modern Egypt (4th edition ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. pp. 443. 
12. ^ Saad, Rehab. "Think about Oman." Al-Ahram Weekly. 10-16 May 2007. 28 April 2008.
13. ^ 2006 - Israeli Tourism Statistics
14. ^ ^{a b} Clark, Kate. "Interpreting Egypt's anti-semitic cartoons." BBC News. 10 August 2003. 28 April 2008.
15. ^ "Egypt criticised for 'anti-Semitic' film." BBC News. 1 November 2002. 28 April 2008.
16. ^ Wakin, Daniel J. "Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV." The New York Times. 26 October 2002. 28 April 2008.
17. ^ Stalinksy, Steven. "MEMRI: Special Report - No. 28." MEMRI: The Middle East Media Research Institute. 2 April 2004. 28 April 2008.
18. ^ "Anti-Semitic Images in the Egyptian Media: Jews as Nazis." ADL. January 2000 - February 2001. 28 April 2008.
19. ^ [Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media - Images and Accusations: Jews as Abnormal; Israelis as Nazis."] ADL. 1997. 28 April 2008.
20. ^ Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media - Images and Accusations: Jews as Abnormal; Israelis as Nazis
21. ^ "Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media - Conspiracy Theories." ADL. 1997. 28 April 2008.
22. ^ Dowek, Ephraim. "Israeli-Egyptian Relations, 1980-2000." Google Book Search. 28 April 2008.
23. ^ "Denmark 'Egypt's foe', says poll" BBC News. 1 November 2006. 28 April 2008.
24. ^ Pipes, Daniel. "Time to Recognize the Failure OF Israel-Egypt Treaty." The New York Sun. 21 November 2006. 28 April 2008.
25. ^ Ronen, Joshua. "Poll: 58% of Israelis back Oslo process." Tel Aviv University. 7 June 2001. 28 April 2008.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)