CAMP DAVID ACCORDS

(Sept. 17, 1978), two agreements between Israel and Egypt that led in the following year to a negotiated peace between those two nations, the first between Israel and any of its Arab neighbours. The Camp David Accords were so named because they were negotiated between the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and the Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat under the aegis of the U.S. president Jimmy Carter at the latter's government retreat at Camp David, Md. Egypt and Israel had technically been at war since Israel's founding in 1948, and the latter had occupied the Sinai Peninsula since taking that territory from Egypt in the course of the Six-Day War of 1967. The Camp David Accords had their origin in Sadat's unprecedented visit to Jerusalem on November 1921, 1977, to address the Israeli government and Knesset (parliament); this was the first visit ever by the chief of state of an Arab nation to Israel. Sadat's visit initiated peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt later that year that continued sporadically into 1978. With a deadlock having been reached, both Sadat and Begin accepted President Carter's invitation to a U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian summit meeting at Camp David, Md., on Sept. 5, 1978. After 12 days of negotiations mediated by Carter, Sadat and Begin concluded two agreements: one a framework for the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and the other a broader framework for achieving peace in the Middle East. The former provided for a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai and that region's full return to Egypt within three years of the signing of a peace treaty between the two nations. This framework also guaranteed the right of passage for Israeli ships through the Suez Canal. The second, more general framework called in somewhat vague terms for Israel to gradually grant self-government to the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and to partially withdraw its forces from those areas in preparation for negotiations on their final status after a period of three years. The peace treaty that Israel and Egypt signed on March 26, 1979, closely reflected the Camp David Accords. The treaty formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries, and Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula in stages. The treaty also provided for the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between the two countries. These provisions were duly carried out, but Israel failed to implement the provisions calling for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza areas.