Camp David Accords

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter. Sadat also said he wanted them to be called the Carter Accords.

Contents

[edit] 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 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 Sadat of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. 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 Israeli Labour Party to Menachem Begin's Likud Party in May of 1977. While Begin officially favored the reconvention of the conference, perhaps even more vocally than Rabin, and even accepted the Palestinian presence, in actuality Israel and Sadat 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.

[edit] The Sadat Peace Initiative

President Anwar Sadat came to feel that the Geneva track peace process was more show than substance, and was not progressing, partly due to disagreements with Syria. He also lacked confidence in America to pressure Israel after a meeting with Carter. His frustration boiled over, and after meetings with Israelis, secret even to the Americans, in November 1977 he became the first Arab leader to visit Israel, thereby implicitly recognizing Israel, where he addressed the Knesset about his views on peace, the status of Israel's occupied territories, and the Palestinian refugee problem. This tactic went against both America's and the Soviet Union's intentions, which were to revive the Geneva Conference.

The gesture stemmed from an eagerness to enlist the help of the United States 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 collective 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. In addition, the commencement of direct negotiations between leaders – summit diplomacy – would isolate Egypt from her Arab neighbors, a long-standing goal of Israel. 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.

[edit] The talks

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.

Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and President Jimmy Carter of the United States during the Peace Accords
Enlarge
Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and President Jimmy Carter of the United States during the Peace Accords
President Carter, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance at Camp David.
Enlarge
President Carter, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance at Camp David.
Begin and Brzezinski playing chess at Camp David.
Enlarge
Begin and Brzezinski playing chess at Camp David.

A particularly difficult situation arose on day ten 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, arm-twisted, assured, and petitioned until at last an agreement was possible. The result was the Camp David Accords.

[edit] Terms of the agreements

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 US and Israel and the US.[1]

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 US.

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 6 months later, in particular deciding the future of the Sinai peninsula. Israel agreed to withdraw its armed forces from the Sinai 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.

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.

[edit] 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" (Sela, 100).

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 Arab world under Nasser, Egypt had more leverage than any of the other Arab states to advance Arab interests. Sadat's alacrity at concluding a peace treaty without demanding greater concessions for Israeli recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination incited enough hatred in the Arab world to bring about Sadat's assassination in 1981. Egypt was also suspended from the Arab League from 1979 until 1989.

Also, the Camp David Accords 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 consideration, 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.

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.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also


[edit] Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties

[edit] References

  • Meital, Yoram. Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977.
  • Sela, Avraham. "Arab-Israeli Conflict." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002.
  • Oded, Eran. "Arab-Israel Peacemaking." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/a/m/Camp_David_Accords_3d02.html"