Camp David Accords
Based on Wikipedia: Camp David Accords
Thirteen Days in the Woods
In September 1978, two men who could barely stand to be in the same room saved each other from having to try. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin spent nearly two weeks at Camp David, the presidential retreat nestled in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains, negotiating a peace deal. They achieved something remarkable. But they did it by almost never speaking directly to each other.
Instead, President Jimmy Carter became an unlikely messenger, shuttling between cabins like a diplomatic courier, carrying proposals and counterproposals through the woods. The two leaders' mutual antipathy ran so deep that Carter had to conduct what he later called his own "microcosmic form of shuttle diplomacy" — not between distant capitals, but between cottages a few hundred yards apart.
What emerged from those claustrophobic thirteen days would reshape the Middle East. Egypt became the first Arab nation to recognize Israel. Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula. Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet the accords also planted seeds of bitterness that would grow for decades — condemned by the Arab world, rejected by Palestinians who had no seat at the table, and viewed by many as a separate peace that abandoned the broader cause of Middle Eastern stability.
The Road to Camp David
To understand what happened in those Maryland woods, you have to go back to the wars that made peace seem impossible.
In 1967, Israel fought the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In less than a week, Israeli forces captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The victory was swift and decisive. The aftermath was anything but.
Those territories became known as the "occupied territories," and their fate would dominate Middle Eastern politics for generations. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in the conflict in exchange for peace with its neighbors. The resolution deliberately used ambiguous language — "territories" rather than "the territories" — leaving room for interpretation about whether Israel needed to withdraw from all captured land or just some of it.
Six years later, in 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The Yom Kippur War initially went badly for Israel, with Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal and Syrian tanks pushing into the Golan Heights. Israel ultimately prevailed, but the war shattered the myth of Israeli invincibility and demonstrated that Arab armies could mount serious military challenges.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spent the following years engaged in what became known as "shuttle diplomacy" — flying between capitals to negotiate incremental agreements. But by the time Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, the peace process had stalled.
Carter's Ambitious Vision
Carter arrived at the White House with ideas that made seasoned diplomats nervous. Rather than continuing Kissinger's careful, step-by-step approach, Carter wanted a comprehensive settlement. He envisioned a grand conference in Geneva that would bring together all the parties to the conflict — Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and representatives of the Palestinians — to negotiate a final peace.
This was ambitious to the point of audacity. The various parties had fundamentally incompatible positions. Israel refused to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which it considered a terrorist group. Syria's president, Hafez al-Assad, had no interest in making peace with Israel at all. Jordan's King Hussein worried that participating in peace talks would isolate his country from the Arab world and provoke both Syria and Palestinian militants.
Carter spent his first year in office meeting with the key players. He sat down with Sadat of Egypt, Hussein of Jordan, Assad of Syria, and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. When Menachem Begin replaced Rabin in June 1977, Carter met with him too.
Begin was a complicated figure. A former leader of the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary organization that had fought against British rule in Palestine, he was considered a hardliner. Yet he was also a realist who understood that Egypt was the Arab nation that mattered most for Israel's security. Without Egypt, no Arab coalition could threaten Israel militarily. With Egypt at peace, Israel could focus its attention elsewhere.
Begin publicly supported the idea of reconvening the Geneva Conference. But he had a firm red line that would prove crucial: he absolutely refused to consider giving up Israeli control of the West Bank, which he called by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria. The Sinai was negotiable. The West Bank was not.
Sadat's Gamble
While Carter was trying to organize his grand conference, something unexpected happened. On November 9, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced that he was willing to go anywhere — "even Jerusalem" — to discuss peace.
This was stunning. No Arab leader had ever visited Israel. The very idea of setting foot in the Jewish state was seen as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, a capitulation to the enemy. Sadat was gambling his political future, and perhaps his life, on a gesture of breathtaking boldness.
The Israeli government, caught off guard, quickly extended an invitation. Ten days after his speech, Sadat arrived in Jerusalem. He addressed the Knesset, Israel's parliament, calling for peace while also demanding Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.
The Washington foreign policy establishment was blindsided. Carter and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, worried that Sadat was simply trying to get the Sinai back as quickly as possible while setting aside the Palestinian question. Their fears would prove well-founded.
Why did Sadat take this risk? Several factors drove him. Egypt's economy was struggling, and Sadat believed that ending the costly conflict with Israel and aligning more closely with Western nations, particularly the United States, would bring economic benefits. He had also grown weary of sacrificing Egyptian blood and treasure for the broader Arab cause, particularly for Palestinians who seemed unable to organize effective political leadership. And he calculated — correctly, as it turned out — that making peace with Israel would bring Egypt enormous amounts of American aid.
There was something else too. Sadat was not an ideologue. Unlike some Arab leaders who viewed the conflict with Israel in existential or religious terms, Sadat saw it as a practical problem to be solved. He kept his eye on what he could achieve, not on what principle demanded.
Secret Channels
What the Americans didn't know was that Egypt and Israel had been talking behind their backs.
Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan had met secretly in Morocco with Hassan Tuhami, a close confidant of Sadat. These clandestine conversations had laid the groundwork for Sadat's dramatic Jerusalem visit. In a sense, Egypt and Israel were working together to push Carter off his Geneva track and toward a bilateral deal that served both their interests.
After Sadat's Jerusalem visit, the question became: how to move forward? Sadat proposed an unusual arrangement. He suggested that Israel place a secret representative in the American embassy in Cairo. This Israeli envoy, operating under American cover, would serve as a liaison between the Egyptian and Israeli leaders. Only the American ambassador would know the representative's true identity.
Carter rejected this scheme. He didn't want to provide American cover for a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace process that bypassed his broader vision. But he couldn't stop the momentum. Within days, Israeli journalists were allowed into Cairo, breaking a symbolic barrier. The two sides scheduled a working summit for Christmas Day in Ismailiya, a city near the Suez Canal.
The Ismailiya summit produced no breakthrough, but it established that direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel were now the path forward. Carter's Geneva Conference was effectively dead.
Retreat to the Mountains
By the summer of 1978, the bilateral talks between Egypt and Israel had stalled. The two sides remained far apart on crucial issues. Carter decided to take a gamble of his own. He invited both Sadat and Begin to Camp David for an extended summit.
Camp David was an inspired choice. Located about sixty miles from Washington, the presidential retreat offered seclusion and security. More importantly, it offered isolation. There would be no press conferences, no daily headlines, no opportunities for either leader to play to domestic audiences. The negotiators would be trapped together until they either reached an agreement or admitted failure.
The summit began on September 5, 1978. Carter's advisers had urged him to aim for a framework that would link an Egyptian-Israeli agreement to eventual progress on the Palestinian issue. Carter felt this wasn't ambitious enough. He wanted a comprehensive "land for peace" deal that would include Israeli withdrawal from both the Sinai and the West Bank.
The reality of the negotiations quickly intruded on these hopes.
Antipathy in the Woods
Begin and Sadat were opposites in almost every way. Sadat was a grand strategist who thought in sweeping historical terms. Begin was a lawyer by training who obsessed over precise language and legal formulations. Sadat wanted to make history. Begin wanted to make sure the fine print protected Israel's interests.
Their personal chemistry was toxic. Early in the summit, the two men had a face-to-face meeting that went so badly that Carter abandoned the approach entirely. From that point on, he conducted separate negotiations with each leader, carrying messages between their cabins like a translator between warring tribes.
"Claustrophobia was setting in," one participant recalled.
By the tenth day, the talks had reached an impasse. Two issues seemed insurmountable. First, the Israeli settlements in the Sinai: Sadat insisted that every Israeli settler must leave Egyptian territory. Begin, facing domestic political pressure from the settler movement, resisted. Second, the West Bank: Carter and Sadat wanted firm commitments on Palestinian autonomy and eventual statehood. Begin wouldn't budge.
Carter faced a choice. He could try to salvage an agreement by conceding the West Bank issue to Begin while pressing Sadat's position on Sinai settlements. Or he could walk away, report that the talks had failed, and let Begin take the blame.
He chose to keep trying.
Gettysburg
In a move that might seem odd for a diplomatic summit, Carter took both leaders on a field trip to Gettysburg National Military Park, site of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. The symbolism was heavy-handed but intentional. Here was a nation that had torn itself apart and then found a way to reunite. Carter hoped the lesson would resonate.
Whether the excursion changed any minds is unclear. But three days later, the negotiators announced a breakthrough.
The final agreement took the form of two separate frameworks. The first, titled "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East," addressed the Palestinian question. The second, "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel," dealt with bilateral relations between the two countries.
What the Accords Actually Said
The framework on Egypt and Israel was relatively straightforward. Israel would withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula in stages. Egypt would establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel. The United States would provide billions of dollars in aid to both countries. This framework led directly to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, signed in March 1979.
The framework on Palestinian issues was far more ambiguous — deliberately so.
The accords recognized "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people," which was significant language for an Israeli government to accept. They called for "full autonomy" for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to be implemented over a five-year transitional period. During this period, Israel's military government would withdraw and be replaced by a freely elected self-governing authority.
But the devil was in the details — or rather, in the absence of details.
Begin had insisted on the word "full" before "autonomy," but his interpretation of what this meant was minimal. He specifically stated that "on no condition will there be a Palestinian state." The accords said nothing about what would happen after the five-year transitional period. They said nothing about Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claimed as their capital. They said nothing about the Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon.
Most crucially, the accords were negotiated without Palestinian participation. The Palestinians and the broader Arab world would later condemn them as a betrayal — a separate peace that allowed Egypt to recover its territory while abandoning the Palestinian cause.
The Absence That Shaped Everything
It's worth pausing on this point, because it explains so much of what came afterward.
The Camp David Accords were designed to solve two problems at once: the Egyptian-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian question. They succeeded brilliantly at the first and failed almost completely at the second. The reason for this asymmetry is simple: Egypt and Israel were both present at Camp David, both committed to reaching an agreement, both willing to make painful compromises. The Palestinians were not.
This wasn't entirely the Palestinians' fault. The Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat, was considered a terrorist organization by both Israel and the United States. Begin had demanded as a precondition that the PLO be excluded from any peace talks. The accords envisioned that Jordan, which had controlled the West Bank before 1967, would represent Palestinian interests in future negotiations. But King Hussein, fearing Arab backlash, refused to participate.
The result was an agreement about Palestinians made without Palestinians. The "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" were recognized in a document they had no hand in drafting. Their future was discussed by leaders who did not represent them and whose interests often conflicted with theirs.
Why the Media's Absence Mattered
One underappreciated factor in the summit's success was the total exclusion of the press. For thirteen days, there were no news conferences, no leaks, no opportunities for Begin or Sadat to make statements designed to please domestic audiences.
This matters because diplomatic negotiations often fail not because leaders can't find common ground, but because they can't be seen finding common ground. Every concession becomes ammunition for political opponents back home. Every compromise gets spun as capitulation. The presence of journalists creates incentives for posturing rather than problem-solving.
At Camp David, neither leader could grandstand because there was no audience. They couldn't walk away and blame the other side because Carter would have reported the reasons for failure. They were trapped in a situation where the only way out was through.
Both men had invested enormous political capital in the summit. To leave without an agreement would have been disastrous. Sadat would have been humiliated in front of the Arab world after his dramatic outreach to Israel. Begin would have alienated the American president whose support Israel desperately needed. Neither was willing to risk those outcomes.
The Aftermath
On September 17, 1978, Begin and Sadat signed the Camp David Accords in a ceremony at the White House, with Carter beaming between them. The following year, they signed the formal peace treaty, and shortly afterward, Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Egypt recovered the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli settlements were dismantled. The two countries exchanged ambassadors. For the first time since Israel's founding in 1948, an Arab neighbor had recognized its right to exist.
But the broader peace that Carter had envisioned never materialized.
The Arab world reacted with fury. Egypt was expelled from the Arab League and remained a pariah for nearly a decade. Many Arabs saw Sadat as a traitor who had sold out the Palestinian cause for Egyptian interests. The promised Palestinian autonomy never arrived. Israel continued building settlements in the West Bank, interpreting the accords as permitting this expansion. The five-year transitional period came and went without meaningful progress.
On October 6, 1981, almost exactly three years after the Camp David Accords were signed, Anwar Sadat was assassinated during a military parade in Cairo. His killers were Islamic extremists who considered the peace with Israel an unforgivable betrayal. Sadat had made peace with Israel, but peace had not saved him from his own people.
A Framework Without Foundation
The Camp David Accords illustrate a fundamental tension in diplomacy. Sometimes the best achievable outcome is a partial solution — a deal between parties who are ready to make peace, even if it leaves unresolved the claims of those who are not. Egypt and Israel were ready. The Palestinians and the broader Arab world were not.
Carter had wanted a comprehensive settlement. What he got was a bilateral treaty that removed Egypt from the Arab coalition against Israel while leaving the Palestinian question festering. From Israel's perspective, this was a tremendous success. Egypt was the most powerful Arab military force, and neutralizing it meant Israel faced no existential military threat. From the Palestinian perspective, it was a catastrophe — the most influential Arab nation had abandoned their cause in exchange for territory.
The accords created a framework for Palestinian autonomy that was never implemented, not because the framework was technically flawed, but because the parties needed to implement it — Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians themselves — never reached agreement on what it meant. Begin interpreted "full autonomy" minimally; Palestinians interpreted it as a stepping stone to statehood. Without anyone at Camp David to represent the Palestinian position, these contradictions were papered over rather than resolved.
The Long Shadow
Nearly half a century later, the Camp David Accords remain the foundation of Egyptian-Israeli relations. The peace has held, if coldly. Egypt and Israel are not friends, but they are not enemies either. They cooperate on security matters, particularly regarding shared concerns about instability in the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.
The framework for Palestinian peace, by contrast, is a dead letter. The West Bank remains under Israeli occupation, with a patchwork of Israeli settlements, Palestinian Authority zones, and areas of shared control that satisfies no one. Gaza became a separate problem entirely after Israel withdrew in 2005, only to see the territory fall under the control of Hamas, an Islamist movement that rejects Israel's right to exist.
The Camp David Accords succeeded in making peace between nations. They failed in making peace between peoples. Sadat and Begin could sign documents and shake hands and share a Nobel Prize. But they could not give Palestinians a homeland or persuade Israelis that sharing the land was safe. Those problems remain unsolved, and the framework that was supposed to address them gathers dust in archives.
Carter's Legacy
For Jimmy Carter, Camp David was the high point of his presidency. His patient shuttle diplomacy between those cabins in the Maryland woods produced the most significant Middle Eastern peace agreement of the twentieth century. Whatever the accords' limitations, they ended decades of war between Egypt and Israel and prevented untold future bloodshed.
Carter would spend the rest of his long life trying to build on that foundation. As a former president, he remained engaged with Middle Eastern peace efforts, sometimes controversially. He criticized Israeli settlement policies and advocated for Palestinian rights, positions that earned him praise from some quarters and condemnation from others.
The thirteen days at Camp David revealed something important about peacemaking. It requires not just willing parties, but confined parties — leaders who cannot escape, cannot posture, cannot play to the cameras, and must therefore actually negotiate. It requires a mediator patient enough to carry messages between people who won't speak to each other. And it requires accepting that partial success may be the only success available.
Begin and Sadat never became friends. They remained, until Sadat's death, two men who had made peace without making warmth. But they proved that peace between enemies is possible — even enemies who find each other's company unbearable. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it has to be.