Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace Faq

Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace FAQ

Camp David Frequently Asked Questions: ●

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Aren't the Camp David Accords with Egypt a model for future agreements with Israel's other Arab neighbors? Really, how can Egypt violate such a significant agreement? Aren't the relations with Israel good now? Ok, so they are not friends, but is there war between them? The threat of war?

Aren't the Camp David Accords with Egypt a model for future agreements with Israel's other Arab neighbors? ●

Even Egypt, first to make peace with Israel and the presumed model for peacemaking, has built a vast U.S.-equipped army that conducts military exercises obviously designed for fighting Israel. Its huge "Badr '96" exercises, for example, Egypt's largest since the 1973 war, featured simulated crossings of the Suez Canal. - Charles Krauthammer - The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998

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After Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat's death, his successor Hosni Mubarak discovered that Egypt could ignore its peace treaty obligations to Israel with impunity. Sadat had signed over 50 agreements and amendments to the Camp David Accords, which spelled out in great detail normalization of relations with Israel. These included trade, tourism, science, cultural and other attributes of peaceful relations. The late Menachem Begin, of blessed memory, fully believed that his sacrifice of Sinai, with its air bases and oil, was worth the inauguration of peaceful relations with the most important country in the Arab world. With every passing year, it became clearer to Mubarak that the Israelis were too timid to protest Egyptian violations. It also became clear that America would continue to supply aid in the billions of

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Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace FAQ

dollars to Egypt, despite Egypt's obvious violations of their most solemn commitments to both President Jimmy Carter and Begin. From this experience Mubarak devised the "Mubarak gambit," which sets out the principle that an Arab country can promise Israel peace and full normalization as a negotiating tactic in order to force an Israeli withdrawal from territory. Then after the territory is recovered, the Arab country can ignore the normalization part of any agreement. - Bernard J. Shapiro, in The Caucus Current, October 1994 ●

"[Anwar Sadat was] a traitor [who had] what was coming to him. He is now dead and buried. Having lived like a Jew, he died like one." - Colonel Qaddafi, dictator of neighboring Libya, friend of Nelson Mandela. [quoted in Jacques Givet's "The Anti-Zionist Complex"]

Really, how can Egypt violate such a significant agreement? Aren't the relations with Israel good now? ●

Two radical Leftists, Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, coupled with the weak Carter, pounded Begin to give up all the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for absolutely nothing. Oh, Yes...The paper words, like Oslo, had all the correct words of peace:, cooperation, exchange of agricultural ideas, cessation of anti-Semitic cartoons in the Egyptian press. Guess what. The Camp David Accords were never kept except by Israel. Today the Egyptian Press is rife with ugly statements against the Jewish State, lavish with anti-Semitic cartoons so familiar during Hitler's regime. Nothing changed. That some Israelis could be so pathetically stupid in the face of unreciprocated Peace gestures is a shanda (shame) for all the Jewish people. - Emanuel A. Winston

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Egyptian Anti-Normalization And Anti-Semitism: An Impediment To Full Relations With Israel Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be in Washington the week of March 27 for a state visit. Israeli-Arab negotiations will certainly be the centerpiece of his discussions with President Clinton and Administration officials.

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Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace FAQ

Egyptian Centrality in Arab-Israeli Peace Egypt, under the courageous leadership of President Anwar Sadat, changed the course of Middle East history by becoming the first Arab nation to make peace with the State of Israel. In his nearly two decades in power, President Mubarak has continued the policy of Sadat and has maintained peaceful relations with Israel. President Mubarak has also worked over the years to encourage other Arab leaders to enter negotiations with Israel and has been an important behind-the-scenes facilitator of Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria and others. A "Cold Peace" At the same time, however, twenty-one years into this historic peace, relations between Israel and Egypt have never developed beyond proper cordiality. President Mubarak has done little to warm up the "cold peace," and to encourage people-to-people exchanges and interactions between Israelis and Egyptians. Symbolically, unlike his predecessor, President Mubarak has never gone on a state visit to Israel, always claiming that the timing is not appropriate. (He did attend the funeral of the late Prime Minister Rabin in Jerusalem.) As in other Arab countries, while the leadership may be engaged in relations with Israel, Egypt?s grassroots and intelligentsia are opposed to any contact with Israel and Jews. Professionals in Egypt are discouraged from interacting with Israeli colleagues. Israelis are barred from participating in "international" book and film festivals in Egypt. Continuing Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media The cold peace between Israel and Egypt is most apparent in the Egyptian media where all too often Jews and Israelis are depicted in a derogatory and incendiary manner. Anti-Semitic stereotypes are prevalent in caricatures and articles, with Jews portrayed as stooped, hook-nosed and money-hungry, fighting for world domination. Israeli leaders are regularly depicted as Nazis, while other articles deny or diminish the Holocaust. The articles and caricatures can be found in opposition newspapers as well as in the government-backed press, including the largest dailies, Al-Ahram, Al-Goumhuriyya and the popular magazine October. While President Mubarak has on occasion denounced these antiJewish depictions and conspiracy theories, claims of "International Zionist" conspiracies continue to dominate the media, as do

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Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace FAQ

depictions of Jews as Nazis, and Holocaust denial. - Anti-Defamation League

Ok, so they are not friends, but is there war between them? The threat of war? ●

In September 1996, Egypt held its largest strategic maneuvers ever. The exercise was code named Badr-96 and involved over 35,000 soldiers, including a canal crossing and liberating of a "besieged city." The "enemy" in this exercise was Israel. It is routine for major militarily exercises to have code names and to involve fictitious enemies. However, it is most unusual for a country to conduct such an exercise in which the "enemy" is one that the country is presumably at peace with. Egypt, regardless of its intentions, sent a disturbing message to Israel by naming the exercise in honor of its last war with Israel, and by identifying Israel as the enemy. These events take on even more significant meaning when one looks at the transformation of the Egyptian military forces over the past decade. Egypt, since 1985, has undertaken serious efforts to achieve conventional military parity with Israel and currently fields the 13th largest military in the world. Relying on $2.1 billion of annual aid from the US, $1.3 billion in military assistance, is currently modernizing and building-up its military forces to such an extent that it is approaching the quantitative and qualitative levels of the Israeli Defense Forces. In 1994, Egypt surpassed the United States to become the second largest arms importer, behind Saudi Arabia, in the world. Egypt, in a region thatleads the world in the import of weapons, is the only Middle East country to have increased its arms purchases yearly since 1990. ...Egypt is bordered by Libya, Sudan, and Israel. While Sudan's Islamic regime is ideologically troublesome, its 300 main battle tanks (250 of which are T-54/55's), and some 50 combat aircraft pose a negligible military threat to Egypt. On paper, Libya's military is far more formidable than Sudan's. However, its forces hardly pose a military threat to Egypt. Some 1,600 of Libya's 2,200 tanks are old Soviet T-54/5's. Moreover, a lack of manpower has forced Libya to place over half of these tanks, as well as many of its 400 aircraft, in storage, thereby making Libya little more than a massive arms depot. It is significant to note, that Libya's 80,000 man military is less than twenty percent the size of Egypt's. Finally, despite the triangle of tension between Egypt, Sudan, and Libya, they have generally demonstrated a willingness to support each other over

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Camp David, Camp David Accords - The Peace FAQ

perceived pan-Islamic issues. Consequently, there is little doubt that Israel is the target of Egypt's massive military buildup. Indeed, an examination of Egyptian perspectives towards Israel leaves little doubt that Egypt has not ruled out the prospect of a future conflict with Israel. Former Egyptian President Sadat's support of expanded relations with Israel never came to fruition as Egypt's intellectual, political, and economic elite continued to shun Israel as a regional actor. The passage of time has not improved Egyptian perceptions toward, or its acceptance of, Israel.

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