Lessons of Camp David
Marking the 25th anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David agreement, former US President Jimmy Carter said intense American involvement and leadership were the keys to the successful peace the two countries managed to reach. Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
The 25th anniversary of the Camp David framework agreement signed by Egypt and Israel on 17 September 1978 also coincided with the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on 13 September 1993. The framework agreement, mediated by former US President Jimmy Carter and signed by late President Anwar El-Sadat and late Israeli Prime Minister Menechem Begin, outlined the principles that led to the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty six months later, in March 1979. Yet, while the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel are still in effect 25 years later, the Oslo accords are currently in shambles amid expectations by the involved parties that the situation will only get worse.
Participants in a daylong seminar hosted by the Carter Centre to mark the 25th anniversary of Camp David noted the irony of that situation, while reflecting on the elements that made the Egyptian-Israeli accords relatively successful compared to the ailing Palestinian-Israeli peace process. According to participants -- who included prominent US, Egyptian and Israeli figures who played a vital role in reaching the agreement -- the key difference between the two agreements was the intense US involvement in the formulation of the Camp David accords, combined with Carter's role as an honest broker.
Dedicated teams working with the three key decision makers -- Carter, Sadat, and Begin -- were also vital in bringing the accords to fruition by coming up with creative proposals that helped bridge the gap between the two sides.
Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said he decided to summon Sadat and Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat after it became obvious that attempts to reach a final peace deal between the two sides had reached a standstill. The original optimism that followed Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem in November 1977 -- during which he addressed the Israeli Knesset -- had dissipated, and two meetings between the late Egyptian president and Begin were not fruitful.
As a matter of fact, Carter said, one of the first "creative solutions" proposed by a key member of the Israeli team, Aharon Barak -- who is currently President of Israel's Supreme Court -- was to avoid holding direct meetings between Sadat and Begin after it became obvious that the two men couldn't stand each other.
One key sticking point, participants said, was Begin's vehement refusal to dismantle Israeli settlements in Sinai. Sadat, meanwhile, was insistent that all of the Egyptian territory occupied by Israel in 1967 should be restored. In one heated exchange that took place during the first meeting between the two leaders on the third day of the Camp David talks, Carter recalled how Sadat pounded the table and shouted at Begin, "Security, yes. Land, no." In response, the right-wing Israeli premier told Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: "My right eye will fall out, my right hand will fall off before I ever agree to the dismantling of a single Jewish settlement."
In light of such seemingly incontrovertible gaps, Barak proposed that either American mediators should hold separate negotiations with each team, or else members of the two teams could meet, but without Sadat and Begin being there. "Otherwise," Barak said, "we would have left Camp David after the third days of the talks without reaching an agreement."
Still, the Sinai settlements issue continued to threaten the talks' success until nearly the last day of negotiations. At this point, Barak finally convinced Begin to accept a compromise -- he would not personally make the decision to dismantle the settlements, but ask the Israeli Knesset to vote on the issue instead. Ironically, it was current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- considered a driving force of the Israeli settler movement -- who encouraged Begin to dismantle the Sinai settlements, recognising that reaching peace with Israel's largest Arab neighbour was far more important for Israel's interests.
Another Camp David sticking point, which clearly remains controversial today, was Sadat's stand on linking the Egyptian- Israeli agreement to a wider settlement for the overall Arab-Israeli conflict, and particularly its Palestinian track. During Camp David, Carter said, he insisted on laying down general principles for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, despite intense opposition on Begin's part. However, during the six months of negotiations that led to the final agreement in 1979, Carter sent messages to Sadat via his envoys, urging the Egyptian president to drop his insistence on representing the Palestinians and proceed with signing a separate peace deal with Israel.
Osama El-Baz, President Hosni Mubarak's senior political adviser who participated in the seminar via satellite from Cairo, said Sadat sincerely wanted to reach a settlement on the Palestinian track, but he also recognised that he could not make final decisions if the Palestinians were completely eliminated from the negotiations. Sadat was also hopeful that the United States would exert pressure on other Arab countries, namely Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to join the peace talks. But those two countries, while privately endorsing the US effort, according to Carter, refused to go public in their backing of Camp David and joined other Arab countries in condemning Sadat instead.
According to Hermann Eilts, US ambassador to Egypt at that time, it was obvious that "Sadat was primarily concerned with restoring Egypt's occupied land and would not have stopped the deal because of a failure to reach an agreement on the Palestinian track." The second part of the Camp David agreement, outlining the principles that would lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, was practically ignored after the Palestinians and Jordan refused to join the peace talks.
Meanwhile, Carter confessed in his address that "one major mistake" he made during the Camp David talks was giving up on his request that Israel freeze its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. One day before the signing of the framework agreement, Carter met Begin and asked him to produce a letter pledging to freeze settlement activity for at least one year. Hours before the signing ceremony, however, Begin sent Carter a letter expressing his agreement on freezing settlement activity for only three months.
Facing the possibility that the entire agreement would collapse if he insisted on his stand, Carter accepted the letter, and went ahead with the signing ceremony anyway. "I don't think that Begin lied to me, but it was mostly a misunderstanding," Carter said. Carter also said that he "should have insisted on freezing the settlements, which today has proven to be the most difficult obstacle in achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians".
He noted that 25 years ago, there were hardly 10,000 settlers in the West Bank; today, that number has risen to nearly 230,000, further complicating peace talks between the two sides. Carter said that dismantling Israeli settlements and Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist were the keys to achieving permanent peace in the region.
The 80-year-old former president was not very optimistic about current US President George Bush actually pushing for a final deal between Israel and the Palestinians, despite his public statements to that effect. With the volatile situation in Iraq, US concern over Iran's alleged nuclear programme, disagreements with Syria and the situation in North Korea, "President Bush would not have the time to dedicate 13 days to reach a final deal between Israel and the Palestinians," Carter said.
Along with other seminar participants, the former US president -- a Democrat who opposed the war on Iraq without UN support -- made clear that only a new American administration, more willing to cooperate with the international community and play the role of the honest broker, could actually proceed towards achieving a permanent deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
