Egypt and Israel had been engaged in four major military conflicts since the establishment of Israel in 1948, and tensions had been particularly high after the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973). Also the Israelis had taken control of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been under Egyptian control, during the 1967 war.
Egyptian President A Sadat, President J Carter, Israeli Prime Minister M Begin
Camp David Accords ceremony, White House, 1978.
Wikimedia Commons (top image)
Hope emerged when Jimmy Carter became US President in 1977. Carter was very interested in Israeli-Egypt conflicts, spending time & political capital pushing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat & Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to a mutually beneficial deal. At first Carter tried to include all the warring Middle Eastern parties in negotiations, including Jordan, Syria and the Palestinians. Plus the Soviet Union. But Egypt and Israel preferred dealing just with each other, and Carter was intuitive enough to support them.
The ultimate goal was to establish a framework for Middle Eastern peace by a] formalising Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist securely and b] creating a procedure for the withdrawal of Israeli forces and citizens from the West Bank’s Occupied Territories (to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state).
While the Camp David Accords were negotiated in summer 1978, they were actually the result of months of diplomatic efforts that began under Jimmy Carter. Resolution of Arab-Israeli conflict had been a holy grail of international diplomacy since the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 in 1967. This resolution criticised the acquisition of territory by the Six-Day War of 1967 and cited the rights of Palestinians with regard to statehood.
In its role as a world power, and Israel’s biggest ally, the U.S ultimately played a central role in achieving these aims. In doing so, it became a linchpin of Carter’s policies before the 1976 presidential election. But leaders in both Israel and Egypt had been slow to get together, UNTIL Sadat agreed to speak before the Israel’s Knesset parliament in Nov 1977 – he made a famous and brave speech of reconciliation! Just days later, both sides began informal peace talks that ultimately resulted in the Camp David Accords.
Acrimony between Egypt and Israel heading into the Camp David talks led Carter to speak with each of the leaders separately, in their cabins. The two men were very different and their negotiations were painstaking - Sadat was an Axis sympathiser in WW2 whilst Begin’s parents and brother were murdered by the Nazis! Nonetheless, Egypt and Israel did agree on a number of previously controversial matters.
Camp David Treaty, Gallery of History display
The resulting Camp David Accords contained 2 agreements. 1] A Framework for Peace in the Middle East sought the establishment of a self-governing authority in the Israeli Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank, as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Full implementation of U.N Resolution 242 included the withdrawal of Israeli forces and civilians from West Bank lands and the Sinai Peninsula. There was also recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to eventually seek full autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza.
The accords restored full diplomatic relations between the two nations! And Egypt allowed Israeli ships to use the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran, linking Israel to the Red Sea.
2] A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel outlined the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty ratified by the two nations 6 months later, in March 1979 at the White House.
The contentious future of Jerusalem, which both the Israelis and Palestinians wanted as their capital, was intentionally left out of this agreement.
The treaty also called for the U.S to provide both countries with military aid: $1.3 billion annually in military aid for Egypt, and $3 billion for Israel. In subsequent years, this financial assistance was given on top of other aid packages and investments involving both countries.
So the Camp David Accords were a series of agreements signed by the Egyptian President and the Israeli Prime Minister following a fortnight of secret negotiations at the Presidential retreat, Camp David. President Jimmy Carter brought the two sides together, and the accords were signed 17th Sept 1978.
Although the accords were an historic agreement between 2 warring sides, and both Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize for 1978 in recognition of the achievement, their long term significance was arguable. Tragically, in Armed Forces Day 1981, Sadat was assassinated by his own Muslim extremists during Cairo’s military parade.
And many other Arab nations disagreed with the details of the Camp David Accords. Seeing Egypt’s formal recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a betrayal, the Arab League alliance of nations in the region suspended Egypt from its membership for the next 10 years. Egypt wasn’t fully reinstated until 1989.
NB the U.N never formally accepted the first agreement of the accords, the Framework for Peace in the Middle East, because it was written without Palestinian representation.
Though the Camp David Accords didn’t reach peace in the region, they did stabilise relations between the Middle East’s biggest powers. Israel and Egypt never came to blows even once, even when tensions between them remained high. And these accords laid the groundwork for the Oslo Accords, agreements signed by Israel and Palestine Liberation Organisation leaders in 1993-5 that resolved significant issues to move the region a step closer to a lasting peace.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1994 was awarded jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East. But why did Jimmy Carter not win a Nobel Peace Prize until 2002 for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts?