Presidents Behaving Goodly: Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were a series of agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978. The accords were the result of thirteen days of secret negotiations taking place between the two leaders at Camp David, the presidential retreat. The two formal framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second of these, entitled "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel", led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Sadat and Begin later received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in bringing about the agreement.
The Camp David Accords were the product of fourteen months of diplomatic negotiations between Egypt, Israel, and the United States. They began during the Carter presidency. Shortly after his inauguration, President Carter decided to attempt to resurrect the Middle East peace process that had stalled throughout in 1976. He received advice from a Brookings Institution report, and based on that advice, Carter decided to replace the incremental plan formulated by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with a multilateral approach.
Israel's Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and his successor, Menachem Begin, were both skeptical of the chances of any sort of agreement being reached. Begin, who took office in May 1977, was in favor of convening the conference, and even accepted the presence of Palestinian representatives. Secretly however the Israelis and the Egyptians were formulating a framework for bilateral talks. A major obstacle was Israeli refusal to relinquish control over the West Bank.
In the first year of his presidency, Carter met with Anwar El Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. King Hussein supported Sadat's peace initiative, but refused to take part in the peace talks for fear of provoking Syria and the PLO. Hafez al-Assad also refused to participate, but agreed to meet with Carter in Geneva.
On August 7, 1978, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance traveled to the Middle East to discuss the negotiations that had been taking place between Israel and Egypt. The following day, Tuesday, August 8, the parties agreed to the Camp David meetings, which was scheduled to take place on September 5, 1978. The plan required Israel to return the certain land to Egypt, in order to enhance Sadat’s waning popularity.
Both leaders met at Camp David for 13 days of negotiations, taking place from September 5th to the 17th. Carter is said to have been very active in pressing the two world leaders to reach agreement. Carter pushed for an Egyptian-Israeli agreement which would lead to an eventual solution to the issue of Palestine. Numerous times both the Egyptian and Israeli leaders wanted to end negotiations, only to be drawn back into negotiations by personal appeals from Carter. Begin and Sadat were said to have had mutual distrust toward one another and they seldom had direct contact. Carter shuttled between the two, holding one-on-one meetings with either Sadat or Begin in one cabin, then returning to the cabin of the other.
On the tenth day of the talks a contentious issue arose concerning Israeli settlement withdrawal from the Sinai and the status of the West Bank. The talks appeared to have reached an impasse. Carter chose to press on, going so far as to take the two leaders to nearby Gettysburg National Military Park in the hopes of using the American Civil War as an example of the hazards of conflict. Carter was able to obtain an Israeli-Egyptian agreement,in part due to the absence of the media, which prevented the leaders from using it for political posturing.
The Camp David Accords resulted in two separate 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 accord led to the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in March 1979. The first accord, in part, established an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The Accords recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people". A process was to be implemented guaranteeing the full autonomy of the Palestinians within a period of five years. The withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza was agreed to occur after an election of a self-governing authority to replace Israel's military government. The Accords did not mention the Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon. This accord 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 purposely left out of this agreement.
The UN General Assembly rejected the Framework for Peace in the Middle East, because the agreement was concluded without participation of UN and PLO and because it did not comply with the Palestinian right of return, of self-determination and to national independence and sovereignty. On December 6, 1979, the UN condemned Israel's continued occupation and demanded withdrawal from all occupied territories. In another resolution on December 12, the UN rejected specific parts of the Camp David Accords regarding the Palestinian future and declared them to be invalid.
The second framework 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 and a restriction on the forces Egypt could place on the Sinai peninsula. Israel also agreed to limit its forces near the Egyptian border, and to guarantee free passage between Egypt and Jordan. Israel also returned Egypt's Abu-Rudeis oil fields in western Sinai. The agreement 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.
President Sadat's signing of the Camp David Accords on September 17th, 1978 and his shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were seen as contributing factors that led to his assassination by dissatisfied Islamic extremists. The group that took responsibility for the assassination said that it was enraged over the president's decision to make peace with Israel. Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981 by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. The president's personal protection was infiltrated by four members of the organization. As a truck in the parade approached the president, the leader of the belligerents--Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli emerged from the truck and threw three grenades at Sadat. Only one of the three exploded. The rest of the team opened fire with automatic assault rifles and struck President Sadat with 37 rounds. He was airlifted to a military hospital where, despite the efforts of 11 doctors and surgeons, he died just 2 hours after arriving.
The normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt went into effect in January 1980. Ambassadors were exchanged in February. Some trade began to develop, though less than Israel had hoped for. In March 1980 regular airline flights began and Egypt began supplying Israel with crude oil.
The Camp David Accords were followed by the disintegration of a united Arab front in opposition to Israel. 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.
In his 2008 book The Much Too Promised Land, author Aaron David Miller wrote of President Carter: "No matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."
The Camp David Accords were the product of fourteen months of diplomatic negotiations between Egypt, Israel, and the United States. They began during the Carter presidency. Shortly after his inauguration, President Carter decided to attempt to resurrect the Middle East peace process that had stalled throughout in 1976. He received advice from a Brookings Institution report, and based on that advice, Carter decided to replace the incremental plan formulated by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with a multilateral approach.
Israel's Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and his successor, Menachem Begin, were both skeptical of the chances of any sort of agreement being reached. Begin, who took office in May 1977, was in favor of convening the conference, and even accepted the presence of Palestinian representatives. Secretly however the Israelis and the Egyptians were formulating a framework for bilateral talks. A major obstacle was Israeli refusal to relinquish control over the West Bank.
In the first year of his presidency, Carter met with Anwar El Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. King Hussein supported Sadat's peace initiative, but refused to take part in the peace talks for fear of provoking Syria and the PLO. Hafez al-Assad also refused to participate, but agreed to meet with Carter in Geneva.
On August 7, 1978, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance traveled to the Middle East to discuss the negotiations that had been taking place between Israel and Egypt. The following day, Tuesday, August 8, the parties agreed to the Camp David meetings, which was scheduled to take place on September 5, 1978. The plan required Israel to return the certain land to Egypt, in order to enhance Sadat’s waning popularity.
Both leaders met at Camp David for 13 days of negotiations, taking place from September 5th to the 17th. Carter is said to have been very active in pressing the two world leaders to reach agreement. Carter pushed for an Egyptian-Israeli agreement which would lead to an eventual solution to the issue of Palestine. Numerous times both the Egyptian and Israeli leaders wanted to end negotiations, only to be drawn back into negotiations by personal appeals from Carter. Begin and Sadat were said to have had mutual distrust toward one another and they seldom had direct contact. Carter shuttled between the two, holding one-on-one meetings with either Sadat or Begin in one cabin, then returning to the cabin of the other.
On the tenth day of the talks a contentious issue arose concerning Israeli settlement withdrawal from the Sinai and the status of the West Bank. The talks appeared to have reached an impasse. Carter chose to press on, going so far as to take the two leaders to nearby Gettysburg National Military Park in the hopes of using the American Civil War as an example of the hazards of conflict. Carter was able to obtain an Israeli-Egyptian agreement,in part due to the absence of the media, which prevented the leaders from using it for political posturing.
The Camp David Accords resulted in two separate 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 accord led to the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in March 1979. The first accord, in part, established an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The Accords recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people". A process was to be implemented guaranteeing the full autonomy of the Palestinians within a period of five years. The withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza was agreed to occur after an election of a self-governing authority to replace Israel's military government. The Accords did not mention the Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon. This accord 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 purposely left out of this agreement.
The UN General Assembly rejected the Framework for Peace in the Middle East, because the agreement was concluded without participation of UN and PLO and because it did not comply with the Palestinian right of return, of self-determination and to national independence and sovereignty. On December 6, 1979, the UN condemned Israel's continued occupation and demanded withdrawal from all occupied territories. In another resolution on December 12, the UN rejected specific parts of the Camp David Accords regarding the Palestinian future and declared them to be invalid.
The second framework 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 and a restriction on the forces Egypt could place on the Sinai peninsula. Israel also agreed to limit its forces near the Egyptian border, and to guarantee free passage between Egypt and Jordan. Israel also returned Egypt's Abu-Rudeis oil fields in western Sinai. The agreement 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.
President Sadat's signing of the Camp David Accords on September 17th, 1978 and his shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were seen as contributing factors that led to his assassination by dissatisfied Islamic extremists. The group that took responsibility for the assassination said that it was enraged over the president's decision to make peace with Israel. Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981 by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. The president's personal protection was infiltrated by four members of the organization. As a truck in the parade approached the president, the leader of the belligerents--Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli emerged from the truck and threw three grenades at Sadat. Only one of the three exploded. The rest of the team opened fire with automatic assault rifles and struck President Sadat with 37 rounds. He was airlifted to a military hospital where, despite the efforts of 11 doctors and surgeons, he died just 2 hours after arriving.
The normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt went into effect in January 1980. Ambassadors were exchanged in February. Some trade began to develop, though less than Israel had hoped for. In March 1980 regular airline flights began and Egypt began supplying Israel with crude oil.
The Camp David Accords were followed by the disintegration of a united Arab front in opposition to Israel. 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.
In his 2008 book The Much Too Promised Land, author Aaron David Miller wrote of President Carter: "No matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."