0:23
And thus, Sadat arrived in Jerusalem in November 1977 on his historic,
ground-breaking visit to Israel, recognizing Israel and
making this extraordinary gesture of peace with the Jewish state.
0:40
But when Sadat appeared in the Israeli Parliament,
in the Knesset in Jerusalem, in his speech,
he made it very clear, that he had not come to Israel for a separate deal.
1:14
And in his speech in the Knesset, Sadat demanded that there be an independent
Palestinian state that Israel fully withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, and
that Israel agree to divide Jerusalem into an Arab
capital of the Palestinian state and the Jewish part as the capital of Israel.
1:50
Prime Minister Menachem Begin was more reluctant in his agreement for
complete withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai Peninsula that Egypt demanded.
Then was there foreign minister and the defense minister,
Moshe Dayan and Wrightsman in the Israeli cabinet.
[SOUND] And begging hesitation and concern for
Israel's long-term security, and therefore,
reluctance to commit to complete withdraw almost drove the initiative to failure.
And it was against this possible failure of this historic
initiative that the American president, Jimmy Carter,
convened a conference in September 1978 of Israel, and
Egypt, and the United States to try and bring about a final agreement and
prevent the failure of the Sadat initiative to Israel.
The US role in achieving an agreement between Israel and
the Egyptians was critical.
The parties could accept American ideas more easily than they could accept them
from the other side.
[SOUND] And Israel finally agreed to withdraw fully from
the settlements it had established in the Sinai peninsula
from the airfields that it had built there as well.
And the United States agreed to rebuild the airfields that Israel had
abandoned in Egypt, in Israeli territory,
was considered with US financial and technical assistance.
The United States, also promised an aid package to Egypt.
3:58
did not only relate to Egyptian-Israeli relations.
There was a Palestinian section in the agreement that was achieved
in the Camp David negotiations, and the Palestinian section
dealt with a creation of autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
4:18
And it is important to note that there was no binding linkage between
the implementation of the Palestinian section, and
the implementation of the Israeli-Egyptian section.
That is, failure to achieve agreement on the implementation of the Palestinian
section, did not automatically lead to a breakdown on the Israeli-Egyptian front.
The autonomy talks went nowhere.
Mainly because there were no Palestinians who were really willing to take part
in them.
After all, autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza was not sufficient for the PLO or
for any of the Palestinians who resided in the West Bank and Gaza itself.
And despite the fact that the autonomy talks did not take off,
the treaty between Israel and Egypt held.
What that meant was, that Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel,
had essentially succeeded in trading Sinai for
maintenance of Israeli control over all of Arab-Israel.
[SOUND] Peace with Egypt had great historical meaning.
It dramatically altered the regional balance of power in Israel's favor.
5:44
If Egypt was no longer in the order of battle, Syria or
any other Arab states could not go to war with Israel without Egypt, and
therefore, Egypt at peace with Israel meant that the Arab states we're
no longer capable of realistically thinking in terms of war with Israel.
And, in fact, since the war of 1973,
Israel has not been forced to fight,
any further wars with any of the Arab states.
[SOUND] Although Israel does not fight the Arab states anymore,
the active conflict with the Palestinians continued.
Professor Asher SusserSenior Research Fellow
