The vast gulf in US and Israeli positions about Palestinian self-determination, the degree of withdrawal from the West Bank, and future borders is precisely stated. A year later at the end of the Camp David negotiations, Israeli and US views had not changed at all.
Begin welcomes Sadat’s bold initiative, seeking an end to the conflict with other Arab states through negotiated treaties. Begin invites other Arab leaders to negotiate as Sadat was doing.
Sadat tells the Israeli people and world that he seeks a just and durable peace, which is not a separate peace, between Israel and Egypt. He equates statehood for the Palestinians as their right to return.
Two weeks after Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Hassan Tuhami meet in Morocco under the auspices of King Hassan II for a frank discussion of what they want out of bilateral negotiations.
Five weeks after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem in November 1977, to accelerate Egyptian – Israeli negotiations, Begin brought to President Jimmy Carter, Israel’s response to Sadat’s peace initiative: political autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was considered.
As part of a joint statement, President Carter makes promises regarding US’ role in coming Political-Military Committee Talks in Cairo and Jerusalem. Likewise presenting a four-point formula for resolving the conflict, these statements contribute to US-Israeli tensions.
These six documents reveal the advanced state of Washington’s success in finding compromise language and principles for achieving Egyptian and Israeli agreement on bilateral matters and about Palestinian West Bank self-rule (Begin’s ideas), though significant gaps remain before the Camp David Summit.
The Israeli delegation at Camp David discusses a meeting among Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter at which Sadat presented a peace framework that Begin called “the most extreme document that the Egyptians have ever written”
Early during the Camp David summit, Moshe Dayan, Ezer Weizman and other Israeli officials address resettlement and payment of 1967 and 1948 Palestinian refugees and Israeli military redeployment on the eastern and western borders, while Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance and other Americans emphasize Palestinian sovereignty.
This meeting between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the Israeli delegation exemplified the injection of US interests and the application of concerted diplomatic pressure on Israel. The Israeli delegation at Camp David repeatedly refused the Carter administration’s vigorous efforts to introduce new formulations that might ultimately result in a Palestinian state.
In this meeting, the contents of which have not been released by the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) but are available from the Israel State Archives (ISA), Begin clearly committed that “perhaps one military settlement” in the Jordan Valley would be established during the three months of the treaty negotiations. The extraordinarily contentious public dispute on the settlements would mar the diplomatic success of the Camp David Accords and add tension to the already fraught Carter-Begin relationship.
U.S. and Israeli officials at Camp David spend a session focused on the land-for-peace U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 and how it applies to the West Bank, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians. Appropriate for a discussion over 242, whose application depends on the absence of the word “the,” the officials argue over using boundary, border, line, borderline or something else.
With President Carter mediating, Sadat and Begin agree to two outlines: a framework for a treaty between them and to define Palestinian “autonomy,” not self-determination or a state for them.
On the last day of negotiations at Camp David, President Carter asked Israel to accept the US position that Jerusalem was occupied territory; Dayan shot back in vigorous opposition, “if we had known that you would declare your position on Jerusalem, we would not have come here. This is the first time that we are confronted with an American position and specifically on the most sensitive issue. All your positions with regards to settlements are insignificant compared to our confrontation on the issue of Jerusalem.”
This document is the only known official written transcript of the Begin-Carter discussion held at the end of the 1978 Camp David negotiations about any moratorium on Israel’s future settlement building. This record shows that Begin made no mention of a moratorium on settlement building for longer than three months. However, President Carter publicly, and Secretary of State Vance, in his memoirs, Hard Choices disagreed, believing the time mentioned was five years. For the remainder of Carter’s presidency, and for the rest of his post-presidency, the ‘building of Israeli settlements’ became a key point of contention in shaping his relationship with Israel.
Begin summarizes in great detail the contents and the political implications of the recently signed Camp David Accords. He reiterated Israel’s continued presence in Jerusalem, per its June 1967 Law, and clarified the terms used in the agreements.
Dayan made the case to the knesset that it should vote in favor of the Camp David Accords stipulating why doing so would be in Israel’s long term interest. He stated specifically that there was no promise for a Palestinian state, IDF forces would remain in the West Bank, negotiations for a peace treaty would continue, and these agreements were signed by the President of Egypt and the President of the US.
Embedded in the September 17, 1978 Camp David Accords were broad outlines for an Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and a Framework for Palestinian autonomy. The details of both remained to be negotiated. Yet, obstacles to implementation of the Accords appeared almost immediately.
In an unprecedented presidential political gamble, President Carter meets Prime Minister Begin and then President Sadat to tie up loose ends for an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, signed two weeks later. During the trip, he delivers the first Knesset address by a U.S. president.
Nine days before the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli treaty, U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud carry out an extraordinarily frank conversation. It includes bilateral relations, common fears of regional turbulence and Anwar Sadat’s estrangement from other Arab leaders.
Signed sixteen months after Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, it calls for establishment of diplomatic relations, staged Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, and American security arrangements to support the bilateral treaty.
Prime Minister Menachem Begin argues for the return of Rafah to Egypt; the greater purpose is implementation of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty, which also meant Israel”s withdrawal from settlements in Sinai near Rafah. Egypt in treaty negotiations with Israel, did not want to have the Gaza Strip again under their administration as they had between 1949 until after the June 1967 War
It calls for building a mutual security relationship and for enhancing strategic cooperation to
deter Soviet threats to the region. Establishment of a consultation framework is a key to the agreement.
Barack Obama, while seeking to improve America’s image by urging an end to violence and stereotypes, emphasizes the need for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution as part of a reset of U.S. relations with the Muslim world. His advocacy of soft power distinguishes his administration from George W. Bush’s use of force. Nine years later, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, also in Cairo, heavily criticizes the Obama soft-power approach.
