364 • 18 WAR AND THE QUEST FOR PEACEconstant calls to military reserve duty, and ceaseless tension. Some Arabs,
too, had gone abroad, especially educated young adults seeking intellectual
freedom and professional opportunities. Egypt hoped to free funds ear¬
marked for arms in order to rebuild its limping economy. Widespread food
riots had broken out in Cairo and the Delta cities in January 1977, drawing
world attention to Egypt's economic problems.
The US government got more involved than ever in the quest for peace.
Americans feared that another Arab-Israeli war would be destructive and
dangerous, that the USSR would gain if peace talks failed (during 1978
communism seemed to gain in Libya, Ethiopia, South Yemen, and Afghan¬
istan), and that Arab oil might be denied to Western buyers. President
Carter and his cabinet devoted a disproportionate share of their time and
energy to the Arab-Israeli conflict, visits to Middle Eastern capitals, com¬
promise formulas, balanced arms sales, and top-level meetings.
The Egyptian-Israeli Treaty
A spectacular summit, consisting of Begin, Sadat, and Carter, along with
cabinet ministers and advisers from the three corresponding countries, met
at Camp David (the summer White House in Maryland) in September
- Twelve days of intense negotiations produced documents called "A
Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel"
and "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East." The latter was intended to
bring other parties into the settlement. But Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and (not
surprisingly) Syria and the PLO refused to join in these agreements, which
offered the Palestinians little hope for self-determination. After long and
bitter debate, Israel's Knesset agreed to pull its troops out of Sinai and hence
its settlements and airfields from the lands it would restore to Egypt. Nego¬
tiations opened at Blair House, not far from the White House (clearly high¬
lighting Carter's crucial role). But the Washington talks foundered on
Egypt's attempt to link the establishment of diplomatic relations to Israel's
loosening its control over the Gaza and West Bank Palestinians. The three-
month deadline agreed upon at Camp David passed without a treaty.
Meanwhile, OPEC warned that during 1979 it would raise posted oil
prices by 14.5 percent (later, after the Iranian revolution, it would boost
them further and faster), increasing the West's balance-of-payments deficit.
Fighting a war of nerves against each other, Egypt and Israel jockeyed for
support from Carter, Congress, and the American people and rejected
compromises. The other Arab governments held a summit meeting in
Baghdad in November 1978, offered Egypt inducements to quit the peace