Ken Stein, March 26, 2025
Summary: Ripe conditions that prefaced the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty are almost totally absent in 2025 that might presage additional Arab-Israeli agreements. Why? Today, there is a an absence in political will, courage, and foresight of leaders to change the non-war status quo; dysfunctional structural weaknesses are present among all parties to the conflict, especially Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the PA/PLO; massive political instability exists on all of Israel’s borders for states and insurgencies to prioritize their own existence; none of the sides to the conflict are willing to recognize unequivocally the sovereignty, territorial integrity and legitimacy of the other; the level and frequency of hatred levelled at Israel from many Arab and Moslem leaders has been joined by unprecedented vitriol directed against Israel’s existence in almost daily Arabic, Turkish, and Persian newspapers, on social media, and from the mosque podium. Unlike 1979 there is virtually unlimited resources from petro-dollar wealth to prevent and undo any and all agreements that might be attempted or reached. The irrevocable reality exists. “Outside parties or mediators to a conflict cannot want the conflict resolved more than the parties to the conflict do themselves.”
Sadat: the engine that drove Egyptian-Israeli Negotiations
The Egyptian-Israeli Treaty was the fourth Arab-Israeli agreement signed between the end of the 1973 October War through March 1979, with another not signed until the 1993 Oslo Accords. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Begin promoted their respective national interests in signing bilateral agreement, confounding the Carter administrations strongly preferred diplomatic approach of comprehensive peace between Israel and all of her proximate neighbors. Sadat’s relentless pursuit for the full return of Israeli-held Egyptian Sinai, including critically, securing Israel’s commitment to evacuate all of Israeli settlements there were major Egyptian diplomatic successes. Sadat calculated correctly that the PLO leadership remained adamant in its refusal to negotiate and recognize Israel, and that Israel had no intention to see the emergence of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Indeed, Sadat made a separate peace with Israel because no other Arab party was eager or prepared to join Sadat’s bold and unprecedented initiative of recognizing the Jewish state. Sadat proved to be at least a decade ahead of his Arab leadership peers in realizing the expenditure of human lives and national treasure in trying to destroy or dislodge Israel was not possible, especially if the United States was heavily siding with Israel.
After coming to office in 1970, according to his close adviser, Tahsin Bashir, Sadat became the driving force to obtain the return of Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. For Sadat, regaining Sinai was part of his broader reorientation of Egypt: he sought to distance Cairo from Moscow’s influence, redirect the Egyptian economy toward a capitalist orientation, and through diplomacy, harnessing the attention of Henry Kissinger and the friendship of Jimmy Carter to gain American friendship and assistance economically and militarily.
US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, 1975 (GPO)
President Carter and President Sadat pictured at the Giza Pyramids. Photo: Jimmy Carter Library
Sadat was fully aware that his outreach to Israel would thoroughly alienate him and Egypt from the rest of the Arab/Muslim world. He never wavered from the view that Cairo’s reorientation would be in Egypt’s best national interest. And for that decision, Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981
For a decade after the treaty was signed, the vast majority of Muslim and Arab states venomously opposed Egypt’s recognition of Israel. For Israel, with the treaty in hand, Israel secured a major strategic success by removing from the largest Arab and Muslim state in open confrontation with Israel, since its establishment in 1948. And, to obtain a treaty with Egypt, Israel did not have to pay a terrible price, which the Carter administration dearly wanted: a commitment from Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the devolution of an independent Palestinian state, and a halting of Israeli settlements in these areas. And Israel was able to focus on solidifying what it deemed bettering its security relations with Lebanon, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jerusalem and in relations with Jordan.
Carter’s foreign policy success in mediating Egyptian-Israeli negotiations did not falter because he did not achieve broader Arab-Israeli agreements; it was mitigated by his inability to translate that success into significant domestic support in his 1980 reelection bid. Rather than gaining a notable improvement in public opinion for this unprecedented diplomatic success, he did not improve his public standing for multiple reasons relating to the economy, price of oil, and as seen as being soft if not inept in other international regions of tension—the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the loss of six decade ally, in Iran, the Shah, and holding of American hostages for last year in office. As a sitting president, he faced a tough challenge to his renomination from Senator Ted Kennedy which shook the Democratic Party for months before the August 1980 Democratic convention.
Besides these critically influencing variables, by 1980 Carter had publicly spoken, often evoked with righteous candor mixed messages about Washington’s relationship with Israel. In public, he said he would stand by Israel’s security needs which he did, but he was the only US president who supported or did not veto four U.N. resolutions that directly condemned Israeli presence in the territories secured in the June 1967 war. In part his most vocal cheerleader in stinging Israel was Zbigniew Brzezinski, his National Security Adviser, who replied to me in answering the question about why American Jews did not trust him, “What do you think Ken? I am both Polish and Catholic.” But it was more than his personal background that coached Carter into being harsh and critical of Israel: Brzezinski sought to break the back of Israeli influence in Washington, especially that of AIPAC, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. After the March 1979 Peace Treaty signing, Carter maintained regular sharp criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Begin, both for continuing to build or plan to build settlements in the territories, and his claim that Begin worked to defeat his re-election in 1980. All evidence available today, suggests that while Israel’s Defense Minister Ezer Weizman endorsed Carter’s re-election in 1980, Begin according to US Ambassador to Israel, Sam Lewis at the time, said to anyone who wanted to listen, that a second Carter term would not be in Israel’s interest.
As for the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty itself, it was signed sixteen months after Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem. More than any other political leader, Sadat kept the diplomatic car running, with his foot on the accelerator, cleverly gas in neutral or shifting gears and giving gas when it was necessary. When Sadat recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in several Arab summit meetings in 1974 and 1975, he understood and promoted two separate motivations: genuine support Palestinian political aspirations as led by the PLO, but also realizing that if he supported the PLO vocally, Israelis, if they were interested in additional negotiations, their geographic focus by necessity would have to look toward Egypt and Sinai. Sadat knew that all Israeli leaders would automatically reject initiating any genuine negotiations evolving the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or Jerusalem, because that would mean negotiations with the ‘hated’ PLO. Sadat also knew in the 1974 period forward that Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was totally opposed to any negotiations with Israel, and Jordan, for many reasons remained too timid to enter into separate negotiations with Israel, particularly because the Israelis were not in a sharing mood about the future of Jerusalem.
The final contents of the Egyptian-Israel treaty showed that Sadat made extraordinary compromises over his initial demands for full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories and the promotion of Palestinian political rights The treaty contained nine articles, a military annex, an annex dealing with the relations between the parties, an agreed understandings interpreting the main articles of the treaty, and side letters signed by both sides interpreting key phrases and concepts mentioned in the treaty. The treaty’s foundation included UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, which called for exchanging land for peace and direct negotiations between the parties, and recognizing the territorial integrity of all states in the area. It ended the state of war between Cairo and Jerusalem, established permanent borders, noted both parties’ commitments to refrain from acts or threats of violence between them, and an exchange of ambassadors. It affirmed Israel’s right to freedom of navigation through the international waters in the Middle East (Straits of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba) major causes of the June 1967 war. Critical for Israel was the inclusion of Article 6 in the treaty which essentially said that Egypt had a priority of obligation to observe this treaty with Israel over all other treaties Egypt had or would have with other states. In other words, Egypt would not come to the aid of an Arab state that might be in a military conflict with Israel. In a separate Israel-U.S. Memorandum of Agreement concluded the same day as the treaty, the U.S. spelled out its commitments to Israel including a promise to supply Israel with oil, should it not be able to obtain oil supply from Egypt as promised in the treaty. Israel paid a heavy price for peace with Egypt – returning land, oil fields, and withdrawing Israeli settlementsfrom Sinai, but in return it made peace with the most militarily powerful Arab state. Both Sadat and Begin made critical tradeoffs with the US essentially guaranteeing the political outcomes.
Lessons Learned and long term impact and implications from the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty
- As fierce nationalists, Begin and Sadat zealously defended their prerogatives not to have any other entity or state, including the United States dictate to them, the content or pace of political negotiations and what they deemed their national security requirements. Both carefully listened to the Carter administration, but they retained to themselves exclusive determination of what those national priorities were or would be.
- Both represented mature states, not dysfunctional states or organizations, and each accepted the sovereign legitimacy of the other. This is not the case in 2025. Neither a majority of Palestinians nor Israelis, let along their leaders fully and unequivocally accept the sovereignty, legitimacy, or a territorial integrity of the other.
- Reaching an agreement with the other unequivocally enhanced respective national interests. Israel could not reject a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure diplomatic recognition through a peace treaty with the most populous and powerful Arab state militarily, and what was considered the most salient Arab state culturally and intellectually. At the end of the day, Sadat could not allow his path-breaking November 1977 visit to Jerusalem to go unrewarded without the full return of Israeli-held Sinai, the removal of Israel’s Sinai settlements and a deepened relationship with the United States. He achieved those objectives as did his successors for the subsequent 45 years.
- Egyptian and Israeli leaders made core political trade-offs. Egypt “violated” the 1967 Khartoum Arab summit resolutions that had committed all Arab states to “no peace, no negotiation, and no recognition of Israel.” Begin uprooted settlements in Sinai despite enormous domestic criticism, from his life-long political allies..
- Egypt set a diplomatic precedent for some Arab states. Each could and did reach treaties with Israel based on promoting national self-interests, Jordan-1994, UAE and Bahrain (2020 Abraham Accords) Morocco, and the Sudan in 2020, and still each publicly advocated for the Palestinians, but certainly not with the emotional zest that was present in these states through the 1970s. None of the states that subsequently recognized Israel, made the Palestinian quest for a state, or more specifically the elimination of Israel, a matter that would take precedent over particular national interests.
- Egypt and Israel pulled closer to the United States, despite little progress made in resolving the issue of Palestinian rights. And the other Arab states that pulled closer to Israel were similarly provided with political, economic, or military rewards, and most importantly these benefits were provided by the US..
- Israel focused on securing its other borders and on managing internal requirements – economy, new immigrants, matters of religion and identity. But as the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 showed, as the subsequent conflict with Hezbollah from Lebanon demonstrated, and as the two Iranian attacks on Israel in 2024 revealed beyond any doubt, Israel’s borders and population are not remotely fully secure. Israel’s surrounding neighbors are far more publicly hateful of the Jewish state and Jews than articulated in 1979.
- The Egyptian-Israeli Treaty did not reduce the hatred that some Muslims/Arabs continued to embrace against Israel. That hatred for Israel and Jew-hatred spewed forth by the Iranian Islamic Republic from 1979 forwards expanded throughout the Arab and Moslem worlds, in constant competition with many in the Middle East who were if necessary, prepared to come to grips with Israel’s permanence.
- Thus, the treaty was another transaction of exchanging land for peace, the diplomatic concept that emerged out the June 1967 war, namely “under what conditions and over what period of time would or should Israel return territories secured in the June war, AND, what guarantees would Israel receive in return for relinquishing lands.” The ‘land for peace’ formula was not applied by Israel to any other neighboring country nor to the PLO. As a precedent, there was no subsequent implementation of the concept. The Treaty did not transform political attitudes across the Middle East about Israel; Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah, and Syria remained adamant in refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Core guiding principles of these entities remained total and uncompromising rejection of a Jewish state. In 2025, Lebanon, Iraq, the PA/PLO, remained politically fractured, their economies in dire stress, and reeling from seemingly unsolvable leadership or governing crises.
- The Egyptian-Israeli treaty and the six years of negotiations that preceded its conclusion took place in a Middle Eastern setting that was stable and not rocked by fervent Islamic ideology nor an abundance of oil wealth that could sustain vehement antagonism against Israel and those countries that accepted Israel’s reality. In 2025, the region and especially countries on Israel’s borders are by characterized by political uncertainty, sectarianism, demographic overload, economic weaknesses, and abundant insurgencies that mitigate against reaching another state to state accommodation. The tranquility and stability of states in the Middle East that existed in the 1970s are totally opposite realities in 2025.
- Conditions of partial peace and full hostilities between Israel and her neighbors exist side by side in the Middle East in 2025. In 2025, hostility toward Israel is not only evident from Arab and Muslim leaders, but it also remains rampant and repeated almost daily in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian writings in newspapers, on social media, and from the mosque podium.
- Israeli withdrawal from Sinai worked in terms of sustaining the Egyptian-Israeli peace. However, subsequent Israeli withdrawals both from Lebanon in 1980, and notably and unilaterally from the Gaza Strip in 2005, brought vengeful hostility to two critical border regions.
- Today, the Israeli domestic political setting is wracked by bitter internal disputes on a range of issues, not the least of which remains the absence of any consensus on what any treaty or partial agreement could be implemented with the Palestinians living west of the Jordan River.
- Despite all the persistent urging by parties, pundits and governments wishing to the conflict, it can absolutely not happen unless the respective sides to the conflict are prepared to embrace the ‘day after tomorrow’ and can be reasonably assured that agreements will remain in force even if monitored and guaranteed by external promises.
- There is an irrevocable reality, wisely pronounced by Samuel W. Lewis, the former US Ambassador to Israel (1977-1985), “Outside parties or mediators to a conflict and this conflict, cannot want the conflict resolved more than the parties to the conflict do themselves.”