Camp David: wheeling and dealing

Three determined leaders, Begin, Sadat and Carter, met at Camp David between 5 and 17 September 1978, to shape the Accords (for details see Appendix A).

Begin was determined to achieve a separate peace with Egypt that was in no way connected to a home rule arrangement in the West Bank and Gaza. Sadat was committed to fundamental Egyptian interests and the promotion of some sort of success on the Palestinian question. ‘I am committed to my speech delivered in the Knesset. It is the Egyptian plan’, he declared before his departure for Washington. But that was not the case. Since February 1978, both Carter and Sadat seemed to be thinking of an Egyptian–Israeli Accord only loosely connected to an attempt to negotiate an agreement on the Palestinian question. It was when Sadat proved reluctant to put forward a clear proposal on the West Bank and Gaza that Carter concluded that his real interest was a bilateral Egyptian–Israeli deal. Linkage, Carter began to think, was not that important and, in any event, it should not obstruct the search for a bilateral agreement.

Carter was committed to a positive political achievement that would do credit to his personal involvement, to advancing US interests, and to Israel as a strategic ally. ‘Our number one commitment in the Middle East is to protect the right of Israel to exist, to exist permanently and to exist in peace’, he declared early on in his term of office. At Camp David President Carter was subjected to a great deal of pressure and counter-pressure.