amazed, but he recovered quickly and the next day
invited Sadat to Jerusalem. The Arab world con-
demned the visit. It was unprecedented and many
in Israel responded warmly and emotionally. A
score of the Egyptian national anthem had to be
rushed to the Israeli army band drawn up at Ben
Gurion airport to receive the Egyptian president
and his entourage. As he landed, on 19 November
1977, to a twenty-one gun salute, with Israeli and
Egyptian flags fluttering side by side, it was a
moving spectacle. Sadat had certainly seized the
initiative, catching the world’s imagination as
peacemaker, and millions of people watched his
arrival on television. Sadat spoke to the Knesset on
20 November. Many hard negotiating sessions
would be necessary, for Sadat spoke of peace with
all the Arabs, including the Palestinians, and of a
total Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands.
But he also spoke of accepting Israel in friend-
ship and peace, words no other Arab leader had
uttered, at least not publicly, since 1947. Begin’s
response was conciliatory in form but uncompro-
mising in reality on the issues of the Palestinians
and the continued Israeli possession of the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. Yet direct personal
contact had been made, the long road to Camp
David and peace was at least now open. Begin
offered to return the Sinai apart from existing
Israeli settlements. Although there and then there
could be no talk of formal peace, Sadat and Begin
agreed that only by negotiation and not by war
could divisive issues be resolved. Yet negotiations
between Cairo and Jerusalem dragged on fruit-
lessly for almost a year, with Washington trying
in vain to find a way of resolving their differences.
The Palestinian issue, the West Bank, the Gaza
Strip and the Israeli settlements were blocking
progress. Carter tried again. Finally, Sadat and
Begin accepted an invitation to his presidential
retreat at Camp David to attempt to break the
deadlock. Sadat had been the more accommo-
dating so far; would Begin also compromise?
Sadat, Begin, Carter and their advisers la-
boured for thirteen days at Camp David until the
agreement was signed on 17 September 1978.
Carter’s role was crucial, as he cajoled and pres-
surised Sadat and (especially) Begin in turn. To
have reached agreement at all in the face of the
Israeli leader’s obduracy was a personal triumph
for the president. The two major issues were the
Sinai, and the West Bank and Gaza. Could Begin
be made to give up the whole of the Sinai, includ-
ing the oil wells the Israelis had developed at great
cost, and to pull back strategic settlements which
he had repeatedly pledged he would never aban-
don? Second, would the Palestinians be allowed to
develop in the occupied territories some form of
self-government short of statehood, with the bulk
of Israelis withdrawing? And would the two issues
be linked, as Sadat was insisting: no peace with
Egypt without concrete steps towards a solution
of the Palestinian problem? Begin at first refused
to budge, and Sadat threatened to leave. Carter
promised to place the blame for a breakdown on
Begin when he came to report to Congress.
Reluctantly, Begin gave way – the whole of the
Sinai would be handed back in stages. But the
procedures leading to Palestinian autonomy, and
what that really meant, left practically everything
to Israel’s readiness and judgement; in practice,
there was no linkage. The various compromises
were wrapped up in two main agreements and a
number of agreed additional letters and docu-
ments. At a subsequent news conference, which
was televised, Sadat and Begin embraced as a
beaming Carter looked on. Even then the road to
the definitive peace treaty signed in the White
House on 26 March 1979 was strewn with obsta-
cles, overcome only by determined American
mediation and financial help.
In Israel most people approved of the peace –
the hawks because it strengthened Israel against
the other Arab states by leaving it in firm occu-
pation of the West Bank, and the doves because
it showed that peace could be concluded with an
Arab state, formerly an implacable enemy. But the
Palestinian issue festered. The chance to make
genuine progress was lost. If Israel had acted
speedily to fulfil the spirit of the Camp David
Accords, ‘autonomy’ – a genuine degree of self-
determination – might have had a chance. The
Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza were
benefiting from a rapid rise in their standard of
living as a result of their close association with the
Israeli economy – but the military occupation
acted as a constant reminder that their status
1
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