Camp David Accords

They are known as the Camp David agreements which were signed by the Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat and the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978 after twelve days of secret negotiations. with the mediation of the president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, and through which Egypt and Israel signed peace in the territorial conflicts between both countries.

After the presidential elections in the United States in 1976, Jimmy Carter had initiated direct contacts between the leaders of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Israel, together with Palestinian representatives, to promote a peace process that would put an end, at least, to the border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, to later enter into the depths of the Palestinian problem that was intended to be resolved.

Carter and Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State at that time, resumed the initiative of the Geneva meetings of 1973 based on the need for Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in successive wars since its independence. The change in the direction of Israeli politics after the May 1978 elections from Isaac Rabin to Menachem Begin did not, in principle, represent a problem in the exploratory process initiated by American diplomacy.

Israel's starting point was to deny the Palestinian presence in any talks and accept a possible withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. For its part, Egypt did not want American intervention in the process and preferred bilateral talks between Israel and each of the Arab countries.

Sadat's initiative

The differences in contemplating the peace process between Egypt and Syria led President Sadat to make a surprise trip to Israel in November 1977, implicitly recognizing the Jewish state for the first time and definitively disassociating himself from any joint initiative. with the rest of the Arab countries and the Palestinians. The reasons must be sought, in part, in Egypt's need to improve a battered economy that required North American investments; ^{[citation required]} overcome a conflict with its neighbor Israel that had consumed the destination of a good part of the resources for military expenses and impatience with the attitude of Syria and the Palestinians. On the other hand, Sadat knew the immediate repercussions that the initiative was going to have in the Arab world, but he trusted that the process of recognition of the Jewish state would in turn allow the Palestinians to claim their own state as well.

For its part, Israel could not deny in this case the good faith of its Egyptian neighbor in taking the first step in resolving the conflict; the bilateral problems with Egypt were not the most serious and in some way ensured the stability of the front. Western and divided the Arabs. The United States, initially surprised by Sadat's initiative, saw an opportunity to change the Arab-Israeli dynamic, although the initial bet was an ambitious multilateral peace agreement.

The negotiation

Thus, Jimmy Carter and Cyrus Vance supported the initiative of bilateral talks between Sadat and Begin in the United States, with the express promise of both parties that, if an agreement was not reached, this would not imply an immediate military escalation in the area.

On September 5, 1978, talks began at Camp David. Sadat, the first promoter of the bilateral talks, found it necessary to ask President Carter to act as courier of the proposals during the thirteen days that they lasted, considering himself incapable of discussing the issues directly with a man who represented an enemy state. This situation continued all the time and much later Sadat himself recognized the situation and justified it due to a mixed feeling between protecting the people from him but at the same time believing that he was betraying his Arab allies.

In any case, the starting points of both parties were the following: Egypt wanted the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula and its full return to Egyptian sovereignty; secondly, the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as the elimination of Jewish settlements in these areas, which would constitute the future Palestinian State in a short period of time. This would ensure the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the recognition of both States. For its part, Israel was willing to negotiate an almost total withdrawal of its forces from the Sinai Peninsula within a year with the signing of a peace treaty, leaving a minimum security zone, in exchange Egypt would not demand the creation of a Palestinian State and would recognize the State of Israel.

The agreements

After a significant crisis on September 14 that was on the verge of making the negotiations fail, on the 17th a public agreement was signed, endorsed by the United States, which in summary determined:

First of all, Israel would abandon the Sinai completely, including the dismantling of the established colonies, returning full sovereignty to Egypt, which could not maintain more than a small number of military forces in the area, signing peace six months later. In turn, Egypt would recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Egypt was the first country in the Arab world to do so, which caused the discontent of other Arab countries.

Secondly, a basic agreement was signed that established the calendar and a minimum of powers to negotiate the establishment of an autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

At the same time, the free passage of ships in the Suez Canal and other minor issues were established.

The signing of the agreements meant the establishment of a double regime: the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine, the latter governed militarily. Although the agreements ensured Israel's sovereignty, they also restricted the Palestinians' ability to access economic and political space, and as a result, throughout the 1980s, there was continued resistance and opposition that culminated in theintifada. from 1987.

Consequences

The Camp David Accords changed politics in the Middle East. Egypt had the perception that the Arabs would change the world. With the most powerful military force of the Arabs and with a history of leadership in the Arab world under Nasser, Egypt had more influence than any of the other Arab states. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989.

King Hussein of Jordan saw Jordan's voluntary participation in deciding how autonomy would work for the Palestinians as a slap in the face. Specifically, Sadat said Jordan could play a role in how the West Bank would be administered. Like the Rabat Summit Resolution, the Camp David Accords circumscribed Jordan's goal of gaining control of the West Bank. Focusing on Egypt, the Carteer administration accepted Sadat's claim that it could hand over Hussein. Meanwhile, Arab opposition was building against Sadat, Jordan did not accept the risks of the Accords without the support of its Arab neighbors, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Hussein felt diplomatically snubbed. One of Carter's regrets was that he followed Sadat's view that he could talk to Hussein if Jordan refused to join the talks, but by then the damage had been done for the Jordanians.

The Camp David agreements also favored the disintegration of the Arab Union front in opposition to Israel. Egypt reordered creating a power vacuum that Iraq's Saddam Hussein emerged at the time as a secondary power he hoped to fill. Due to the vague language regarding the implementation of Resolution 242, the Palestinian problem, the main problem in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many Arab nations blamed Egypt for not putting enough pressure on Israel to deal with the Palestinian issue in a way satisfactory to all. Syria also told Egypt that it would not reconcile with the nation unless it abandoned peace agreements with Israel.

The most immediate consequence of the agreements was the frontal rejection of it by the Arab world, including the Palestinians, with the breaking of diplomatic relations with several Arab states. A peace treaty was then signed between both parties, ending the years of hostilities between the two countries.

The assassination of Sadat in 1981 and the confrontation between Iraq and Iran in 1980 had their roots in the fracture of the Arab and Muslim world. Iraq was trying to establish itself as a benchmark in the area after the punishment suffered by Egypt and demonstrate its military power, not so much to Israel, but to its neighboring countries. The longer-term consequences were evidence that a model of coexistence between the different Arab states and the Jewish state was possible and that the paths to resolving the Palestinian conflict could follow a negotiation model far removed from war.