Peace Agreement with Egypt & Begin's plan
for Palestinian Autonomy in 1979
Dramatic events followed in 1977 and caused
a tremendous stir throughout the world, now known as "Camp David I"
The generally unexpected rise to power in
Israel of the Likud party headed by Menachem Begin in June 1977 was followed
soon afterwards by his offer to President Sadat to surrender the whole
of Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a treaty of peace. This offer, made in
September 1977 at a meeting in Morocco between Begin’s Foreign Minister
Moshe Dayan and Sadat's deputy Prime Minister Hassan Tohemi, was followed
in November by Sadat's epoch-making visit to Jerusalem.
Thereafter, following nine months of negotiations,
most of it indirect (through the United States administration), an agreement
in two parts was signed at Camp David in the U.S. (September 1978) by Begin,
Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The first part laid down formally
Israel's agreement to surrender Sinai as part of treaty; the second part
prescribed a procedure intended to lead to a resolution of the conflict
over Palestine. This process was to be inaugurated by a transition period
of five years of autonomy for the Arab of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. After
three years negotiations would be opened between Israel, Jordan, Egypt
and representatives of the Arab residents to determine the final status
of these areas. Then, an agreement being achieved, negotiations could begin
on peace between Israel and Jordan.
First Part: Surrender of Sinai by Israel to
Egypt
Status: Completed
Six months after the signing of the Camp David
Agreement a Peace Treaty was signed in Washington (26th March, 1979) between
Israel and Egypt. This provided for the surrender of Sinai to Egypt in
stages ending in April 1982. All visible evidence of the Israeli presence
was to be removed. Three major airfields-one still under construction-were
to be abandoned; the town of Yamit and the cluster of 14 villages in its
periphery were to be evacuated. They were in fact destroyed -amid fierce
opposition by the inhabitants to their expulsion-in April 1982. Other crucial
clauses in the Peace Treaty provided for the establishment of diplomatic
relations, a cessation of hostile propaganda, and the promotion of mutual
trade and tourism.
The Camp David Agreement had laid down
that the Peace Treaty should be concluded by December 1978. The three months'
delay in its signature was occasioned by the insistence of the Egyptians
that a clause in the original draft should be scrapped or amended. This
clause laid down that this treaty would have precedence over other treaties.
The Egyptians' aim was to remain free to fulfil their obligations under
treaties they had signed in earlier years with the other Arab States. Those
treaties obliged Egypt to go to war at the behest of those States. After
a period of refusal the Israeli Government pressed by U.S. President Carter,
agreed to the addition of "minutes", as an annex to the peace treaty, "interpreting"
the original clause. The annex reads as follows: [Article VI (5)]
It is agreed by the Parties that there
is no assertion that this Treaty prevails over other Treaties or Agreements
or that other treaties or agreements prevail over this Treaty. The foregoing
is not to be construed as contravening the provisions of Article VI (5)
of the Treaty which reads as follows: "Subject to article 103 of the United
Nations Charter in the event of a conflict between the obligations of the
Parties under the present Treaty and any of their other obligations, the
obligations under this Treaty will be binding and implemented."
This sequence of events provided a vivid illustration
of the Egyptians' view of their future relations with Israel: the peace
treaty must not hamper their participation in a future Arab war against
Israel. Indeed during the interim period Dr. Butrus Ghali, the Egyptian
Minister of State, questioned on the kind of circumstances in which he
envisaged Egypt fulfilling her obligations under her treaties with the
other Arab States, declared "Egypt's entry into the war of 1948", that
is, the minuscule infant Israel of the UN partition proposal.
Second Part: Five years of autonomy
for the Arab of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, negotiated final status
Status: Massive Non-Cooperation
This process was to be inaugurated by a transition
period of five years of autonomy for the Arab of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
After three years negotiations would be opened between Israel, Jordan,
Egypt and representatives of the Arab residents to determine the final
status of these areas.
As for the implementation of the agreement
relating to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza it never got beyond the stage of preliminary
talks between Israel and Egypt. At no point did Jordan or any of the Arab
residents in the areas show any sign of co-operating in the autonomy plan.
The preliminary talks themselves came to a standstill because of differences
of interpretation of the Camp David terms. Put briefly, it may be said
that each side proposed conditions in conflict with those terms.
Third Part: Egyptian Normalization with Israel
Status: Not Done
Moreover, with Egypt certain of Sinai regained,
Cairo applied a most selective method for honouring its own obligations
under the Peace Treaty. Practically none of the operational agreements
arising out of the Treaty were fulfilled. The volume of trade was infinitesimal.
Tourism was almost completely one-sided: Egyptians wishing to visit Israel
were pointedly discouraged by unique bureaucratic difficulties. On the
international stage Egypt from time to time supported resolutions whose
thrust nullified the Camp David Agreement, projecting the traditional demands
made on Israel for unconditional withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza,
"self-determination" for the "Palestinian people"-and. the 'restoration'
of Jerusalem.
A symbolic feature of the inability of
the Egyptians to recognise the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty at all
is the fact that on maps of the region prepared after the signing of the
Peace Treaty the name of Israel still did not appear.
Most significantly: the central feature
of the 'Cold War' against Israel ever since 1948-hostile propaganda, some
of it extremely anti-Semitic-never abated.
The ostensible reason for Egypt's behaviour
was to bring to an end the hostility of the other Arab states which she
appeared to have incurred by signing the Camp David Agreement and the Peace
Treaty. In other words, Egypt having regained Sinai-certainly a tremendous,
indeed historic achievement for the Arab nation -- might now be expected
to empty the rest of the Peace Treaty of content. The final result is evidently
to be Egypt's return, by and large, to the pre-1979 relationship with Israel
(of a non-shooting war)-except that the Sinai would be in Egypt's hands.
Egypt's plan for Peace, the elimination of
a 'Jewish' Israel
This prospect was, in a sense, already codified
by Egypt on the eve of the final stage of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai.
On 7th April 1982 Abdul Maguid, Egypt's Ambassador to the United Nations,
who had been permitted (in spite of the alleged boycott of Egypt) to attend
a conference of Arab States in Kuwait devoted his entire speech to the
Palestinian problem. He there presented the Egyptian plan for its solution.
It contained eleven points:
1.The right of the Palestinian
people to end the Israeli occupation of its territories (the West Bank,
Gaza and some or all of Modern day Israel, J.K.).
2.The right to return or compensation in
the pursuance of UN General-Assembly Resolution 194. (The "right of return"
of the "refugees" of 1948 to Haifa, Jaffa, et at. See Chapter 2 "Arab refugees".
S.K.)
3.The right to exercise control over its
wealth and resources.
4.The right to self-determination without
external interference.
5.The right to establish its independent
state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the basis of 1967 borders.
6.The respect of its [Arab] sovereign right
in Jerusalem and rejection of any change-in its geographic, demographic
or legal status.
7.The respect of its right to its territories
and consequently the rejection of any Israeli policy or measures adopted
by Israeli occupation authorities aiming at changing the geographic, demographic
or legal status in the territories, partially or totally occupied in 1967.
8.The right to security and to live in
secure borders on a mutual basis with the neighbouring countries.
9.The right to abolish all Israeli measures
adopted in the occupied Palestinian territories contradicting the Geneva
Accords.
10.The right to remove the Israel settlements
built in violation of the international law and agreements governing the
conditions of occupation.
11.The right to fully apply the Geneva
Accords in the occupied Palestinian territories until the achievement of
a comprehensive settlement and the Israeli withdrawal from these territories.
This was the most comprehensive of all the
articulated Arab plans designed to ensure a dismantling of Jewish State.
The policy it formulated accorded well with the "philosophical" negation
of the very existence of a Jewish State which had long been pronounced
by Egyptian intellectuals and policy makers. In their restrained language
they seek peace with the Jews of Israel provided they relinquish Zionism.
A leading exponent of this philosophy is Dr. Butrus Ghali who, in a symposium.
in Cairo in 1975, posed a series of rhetorical questions:
Will Israel agree to become part of the
region? Or will the nature of the Zionist existence prevent Israel's assimilation
in the Arab homeland? ...Will Israel become a Jewish nation possessing
an Arab character among the united Arab nations? Or are these peace-bearing
ideas without foundation in reality, so that the conflict will go on for
tens of years and a fifth Arab-Israeli war break out, and then a sixth
and a seventh?
In a follow-up to this symposium Ghali was
asked, in an interview to the Middle East Review (Autumn 1975):
Assuming that Israel believes-or continues
to believe-that its self-determination requires that it maintains its Jewish
character, and assuming that a general notion of self-determination in
international law would be that Israel, as well as any other state, can
determine for itself the nature and development of its political orientation,
do you think that the Arab view that you have disclosed to us, which I
think is an important one, is one that will improve the possibility for
peace in the Middle East? Or is it one that might have to change with your
own developing attitude?
To which Ghali replied categorically:
Then we will have no integration of Israel
into this region. Assuming that Israel takes this very stiff attitude,
defending its sovereignty according to this very radical way of thinking,
I think you can have no peace in this region.
This position was further elucidated by a
former Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil, in a guest lecture he delivered
at Tel Aviv University in December 1980. He commenced his talk by asserting
that he wished to speak frankly and scientifically. He then pointed out
that "We do not regard the Jews as a nation at all, but as a religion only.
The Jewish religion is one of the three great religions, but when it comes
to nationality, a Jew can be an Egyptian Jew or a French Jew or a German
Jew."
In this spirit Mr. Khalil went on to predict
that Israel would in fact "change." "We wish very much to live as good
neighbours with you," he said "but we are taking into account that you
will undergo great changes." He was frank also about the real roots of
the conflict "There was a temporary conflict between us, beginning in 1948",
he said. In other words, the conflict is not offshoot of the 1967 occupation
but originates in the very establishment of the Jewish State. No special
scientific expertise is required to perceive that Khalil's. remarks share
a common origin with the Palestinian Covenant of the PLO. (See page 246).
Near-Freeze in relations between Egypt and
Israel after returning Sinai, the "Cold Peace"
The near-freeze of relations between Israel
and Egypt (popularly described as the "Cold Peace") was perceived by some
to have thawed in early 1985 when considerable effervescence was generated
by a move by President Mubarak designed, on the face of it, to renew negotiations
with Israel.1 In the upshot it transpired that
Mubarak was trying, in co-ordination with King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser
Arafat, to draw Washington into negotiations with Jordan--whose representatives
would be accompanied by selected Palestinian Arabs appointed or at least
"approved" by Arafat. This implicit recognition of the PLO would followed-in
Mubarak's plan-by American pressure on Israel to negotiate in the same
format.
Precisely at the time of the Mubarak initiative
an up-to-date report from Egypt made it plain that not only there been
no abatement of anti-Israel propaganda in the Egyptian media but it had
reached new heights of virulence. The Israeli academic personality probably
most friendly to Egypt, indeed a frequent apologist for Egyptian attitudes,
wrote bluntly:
"Today the most dangerous impediment
to relations between the two peoples is not, in my view, the absence of
implementation of normalisation, as detailed in paragraph three of the
Peace Treaty, nor in the absence of an Egyptian Ambassador in Israel, but
in the unbridled incitement against Israel in the Egyptian press. "
He goes on: "Many journalists regard it
as their national duty to serve as watch-dogs who protect Egyptian duty
from any positive contact with Israelis. They denounce any connection in
the cultural sphere as a cultural attack by Israel on the Egyptian personality.
and any economic activity as domination of the Egyptian economy. Negative
news from Israel is inflated to monstrous proportions, while positive moves
are not published at all. Even a newspaper like El Ahram2
permits itself to publish, for example, an article which tells readers
that the Israeli soldiers in Lebanon operate ovens of "termination which
they learnt to build from Nazis. "3
Mubarak's move came as the climax to a
year of manoeuvring to bring about Arafat's agreement to a joint formula
with Hussein. Manoeuvring-and Arafat's presumed "moderation"-were made
feasible the collapse of the PLO 'empire' based in Lebanon-and the severe
clipping of Arafat's wings- in consequence of the other cataclysmic event
of the period: Operation Peace for Galilee, the war in Lebanon.
1. Hosni
Mubarak had succeeded President Sadat who was assassinated-in Sept. 1981.
2. Egypt's
leading daily
3. Professor
Shimon Shamir, (the head, until 1984, of the Israeli Cultural Institute
in Cairo) in Yediot Ahronot 29 March, 1985.
This page was produced by Joseph
E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious
History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
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Source: "Battleground: Fact & Fantasy
in Palestine" by Samuel Katz,
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