ting his name to a document that also included
provisions that would have led, if implemented,
to an eventual end to the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza based
on UN Security Council Resolution 242. An Egyp-
tian-Israeli peace treaty was signed by Begin and
Sadat in Washington on March 26, 1979. Subse-
quently, Begin and Sadat received the Nobel Peace
Prize for their agreement, but the Middle East was
left in turmoil.
The Camp David accords were the result of
a lengthy political opening to Israel initiated by
Anwar Sadat. After Sadat’s surprise attack on
Israeli forces in the Sinai in October 1973 and
the resulting military stalemate, Sadat indicated
through secret diplomatic channels that he was
willing to negotiate a comprehensive peace agree-
ment with the Israeli government. For the next
four years, Sadat’s overtures to Israel fell on deaf
ears until November 20, 1977, when he made an
astounding visit to JerUsalem and addressed the
Israeli Knesset. Despite Sadat’s bold initiative,
the Israeli government conducted substantive
negotiations only under pressure from the Carter
administration.
Significantly, the Camp David accords placed
the Palestinian question at the heart of the Middle
East conflict. egypt, Israel, and Jordan were sum-
moned to negotiate an agreement to establish a
“self-governing authority” to represent the Pal-
estinian population in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza. When the Palestinian authority was
established, a transitional five-year period would
commence, the end of which would bring an
Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories,
Palestinian elections, and Palestinian “autonomy.”
The Palestinian section of the accords was never
addressed and never implemented.
The Camp David accords resulted in a peace
treaty between Egypt and Israel as well as the final
withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai Penin-
sula in the spring of 1982. However, the imperfec-
tions in this separate peace agreement led not only
to a rather “cold peace” between Egypt and Israel
but also to a profound crisis in the Middle East
region. Even before the final Israeli withdrawal
from Sinai, Sadat was gunned down by Islamist
opponents of the treaty on October 6, 1981.
Arab governments initiated a diplomatic boycott
of Egypt. The Begin government embarked on a
full-scale invasion of lebanon in June 1982, just
weeks after the Sinai withdrawal. Israeli public
outrage at the massacre of Palestinian civilians in
Beirut in September 1982 and the rising Israeli
military casualties resulting from its occupation
of Lebanon led to Begin’s resignation in 1983
and his self-imposed withdrawal from public life
until his death in 1992. The Camp David accords,
while successful in achieving a negotiated peace
between Egypt and Israel, set an unfortunate prec-
edent of unfulfilled transitional phases and left the
question of Palestinian sovereignty unresolved.
These problems have since plagued every other
attempt to reach a truly comprehensive settlement
of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
See also arab-israeli conFlicts; palestine.
Garay MenicucciFurther reading: Irene Beeson and David Hirst, Sadat
(London: Faber and Faber, 1981); William L. Cleve-
land, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview Press, 2004); William Quandt, Camp
David: Peacemaking and Politics (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 1986).Canada
There has been a Muslim presence in Canada
since very early times, with the first national
census for 1871 showing 13 Muslims. It was not
until the 20th century that Islamic institutions
became established in North America. The first
mosqUe in Canada was the al-Rashid Mosque in
Edmonton, Alberta, built in 1938. June 28, 1952,
saw the first national Muslim conference in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, with 400 Muslims from Canada and
the United States in attendance. In July, 1954,Canada 129 J