THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS
Write a research paper, presenting a critical assessment of a
historic (The Egyptian Israeli peace
treaty) of negotiations between states parties, or between a
state party and non-state actor, or between international
organizations, on an issue of international or national
security. These may be bilateral negotiations or multilateral
negotiations, direct or mediated. The objective is to evaluate
the process and outcome (relative success or failure for the
parties involved) employing your advanced knowledge of
negotiating tools, concepts and models addressed during the
course (e.g., relationship and substantive interests,
integrative and distributive modes, power, persuasion,
mediation, cultural and ethical considerations).
Solution
INTRODUCTION
Camp David Accords was the first peace treaty between Israel and Egypt to be successful
in a few months of dialogue and agreements. The agreement between the two countries was
signed on the 17th of September, 1978. This type of arrangement was a great treaty between the
two countries due to the fact that it was the first successful peace treaty between Israel and any of
its neighbors from the Arab region. The treaty was mediated by the then president of the United
States of America, Jimmy Carter. The treaty between the prime minister of Israel, Menachem
Begin, and the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, was given an official title of "Framework for
Peace in the Middle East". Later, the treaty became famously known as the Camp David Accords
because signing the agreements between the two heads of states took place in Camp David,
Maryland, the United States of America presidential retreat. The two heads of state (Begin and
Sadat) were later presented with a Nobel Prize award in 1978 for cooperating to bring back peace
in Israel and Egypt, respectively (Karawan, 1994).
ERUPTION OF WAR
According to El Baradei (1982), a series of events led to the first war eruption between
Israel and an Arab country. In 1947, an election conducted in the United Nations voted in favor
of separating Great Britain's Palestine mandate. The proposed partitions to be instituted included
a Jewish country, an Arab country, and an independent Jerusalem to be under the United Nations'
function. The partitioning review by the United Nations received opposition from Arab
countries, followed by the termination of the mandate in 1948. The eruption of the Arab-Israeli
war was witnessed in 1948, immediately after Israel gained its independence. The United
Nations Partition establishment did not include a separate country for Palestinians, which was
why Arabs were opposing the review. After that, Egypt took charge of the Gaza Strip, located on
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 3
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, an event that was simultaneously followed by Jordan's
assumption of governance of the region between the eastern border of Israel and river Jordan. In
1967, several territories such as Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula were taken over by
Israeli nationals (El Baradei, 1982).
It was not long before the elected president of the United States of America (Jimmy
Carter) intervened and was interested in solving the disputes that were being experienced
between Israel and Egypt. One of the strategies that president Jimmy Carter applied during this
mediation process was through the application of persuasion to both parties involved. Through
the United Nations Resolution 242 that took place in 1967, President Jimmy Carter was able to
pull away the Israel troops that had taken over certain territories in Egypt. Through the United
Nations Resolutions 242 President Jimmy Carter found a solution to the regulations that were
opposed by the Arabs. Additionally, the Palestinian refugees were rightly resettled back to their
own land after being affected and displaced as a result of Israeli independence and the
subsequent war that followed in 1967 (Kelman, 1985).
Attempted direct form of negotiation between Egypt and Israel that was not successful
In an effort to negotiate on behalf of the two countries in critical disagreements, President
Jimmy Carter organized meetings with other influential leaders from the Middle East. Egypt's
President Sadat showed interest in meeting US president Jimmy Carter and the end of the
bargain as far as the negotiation was concerned. Fink (1995) states that president Sadat
complained of how Israelis took over certain territories in Egypt and demanded the immediate
evacuation of the Israelis from Egypt. Additionally, President Sadat desired peace to return to
Egypt, and also he showed interest in developing a stronger relationship with the United States of
America. President Jimmy Carter also met the Israelis Prime minister Begin, and the meeting
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 4
was successful since Prime Minister Begin agreed to consider the terms that had been raised by
President Sadat (Fink, 1995).
Direct negotiations were initiated by Egypt's president Sadat who begun to directly
communicate with Israelis government officials which led to him visiting Jerusalem. In his visit
to Jerusalem, negotiations between state parties were witnessed when President Sadat had deep
discussions with the Israeli parliament about the issues that were affecting the two countries.
Saunders (1985) explains that similar negotiations between Egypt and Israel's respective state
parties failed to take place since the Israelis prime minister's visit to Egypt did not take place as
was expected. Prime Minister Begin was unable to meet Egypt's parliament, which marked the
end of the direct peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. Due to the failed direct talks
between the two leaders, the United States of America's first lady, Rosalynn Carter, suggested to
her husband the two presidents' invitation at Camp David in Maryland. This meeting would try
to bring the leaders together in the presence of the mediator Jimmy Carter (Saunders, 1985).
Mediated negotiations between Egypt and Israel
Upon reception of the invitation by President Jimmy Carter, both president Anwar Sadat
and Prime minister Menachem Begin cordially accepted the invitation. On the 5th of September,
1978, the summit for the two countries' peace agreement began and continued consecutively for
the rest thirteen days. Most people across the world that followed the bilateral negotiations
showed some degree of skepticism to the bilateral talks' outcomes between the two leaders in the
United States of America mediated by President Jimmy Carter. Sharp (2005, June) suggested
that the Egyptian government and the Israel government had been fighting for many years. To
add on to that, the two leaders (Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat) demonstrated different sets
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 5
of non-physical psychological and social qualities that did not predict any form of positive
outcomes from the summit.
First and foremost, President Menachem Begin who was always formally dressed and
behaved, demonstrated highest degree of caution of the details of agreements that were being
proposed and how they could, directly and indirectly, affect his country. Secondly, president
Menachem Begin showed little hopefulness of the achievements that could be realized at the
summit in Camp David and therefore his agendas were mostly how future meeting could be
organized and agendas developed. On the contrary, Egypt's president Anwar Sadat was most of
the times casual in the way he groomed due to the fact that he used to wear sports clothes that
were influenced by a popular trend. Most of the times President Sadat was relaxed and
demonstrated the will to cooperate and provide fair, candid and genuine information. According
to Sharp, (2005, June), President Sadat also demonstrated the urge and will to participate in
completely covering negotiations whose goal was to provide light at the end of the tunnel by
addressing all the prevailing issues affecting the two countries and coming up with a long-lasting
solution.
Both the two state parties represented by President Sadat and prime minister Begin were
accompanied by their advisers on foreign policies. United States of America Jimmy Carter who
acted as the mediator was also accompanied by his foreign policy adviser. According to
President Carter, it would be preferable for only the two state parties and himself as the mediator
to meet privately and hold private dialogues and sessions without their foreign policy advisors'
presence. Therefore, President Jimmy Carter had to apply the negotiating tool of persuasion to
convince the two leaders to accept holding private sessions in a small office without their foreign
policy advisors' presence. President Jimmy Carter also had to persuade the two leaders not to
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 6
allow journalists into the private meeting sessions since, according to him, the quality of the
private negotiation could be compromised with either the foreign policy advisors or even the
members of the press. The persuasion method worked quite well as the two leaders accepted the
terms of President Jimmy Carter (Elgindy, 2012).
The final peace treaty through the distributive framework
In a small room, the private meeting scenario proved to achieve strategies of discussing
substantial interests between the two state parties since the interests that were subjected to the
generally recognized conflicts were tabled and debated properly. However, the strategy of
private meetings and direct head-to-head negotiations between president Sadat and prime
minister Begin were not successful after a period of three days negotiations. The two leaders in
the private meeting could not agree on anything and this led to the compilation of a document by
president Jimmy Carter that had suggestions of the solutions to the controversial problems that
the two countries were going through. The resolution proposals were presented to each state
party in a different President Carter meeting while analyzing their suggestions on the drafted
proposal. The proposal document was reviewed severally before each leader agreed to the
document's proposals (Elgindy, 2012).
Efforts by the negotiating team to come up with a common understanding at Camp David
showed no signs of success and immediately the parties involved in the negotiations gave up and
wanted to return back to their respective countries. GIARDINA (1978) explains that a consensus
was reached on the final day before the States parties and the mediator gave up. Upon ethical
considerations, President Begin accepted to let the Knesset decide on Egyptian territories that the
Israelis had taken over. Previously, the settlements on Sinai Peninsula had been the main source
of the conflict experienced in decades between Egypt and Israel since president Sadat and other
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 7
Previous Egyptian presidents had demanded for evacuation without success. Before both parties
came to a general consensus, integrative negotiation was the basis for bargaining since each
party wanted to benefit from a valuable agreement that was more in their favor than in favor of
their counterpart state party. As a result of this, it became even more difficult for the mediator to
come up with solutions for their common problems (GIARDINA, 1978).
The articulation of the distributive concept of negotiation was evidenced when both the
Egyptian president and Israeli prime minister agreed to end the misunderstanding between the
two countries by signing a treaty consisting of three parts. In a study conducted by Mark (2005,
April), the first part of the "framework for peace in the middle east" consisted of allowing the
Palestinians to govern themselves in Gaza. The second part of the treaty constituted a support
structure that concluded the peace treaty measures between Egypt and Israel. The third section of
the peace framework consisted of recommendations that Israel would apply to end
misunderstandings between her and other neighboring countries. In this case, substantive
interests were necessary since the claims were subjected to the perceived ongoing conflicts
between the two negotiating parties. Therefore, the generation of a positive relationship was
significantly put into consideration by the two parties. On this note, the Israeli prime minister
agreed with the Israeli Knesset to conduct a peaceful autonomous transition through a Palestinian
authority's election. The purpose of the Palestinian government's independent transition process
was to establish a replacement of the Israeli political and military forces in the Egyptian regions
that had been previously occupied by the Palestinian Authority (Mark, 2005, April).
The signing of the final treaty in 1979
According to Quandt (1986), the final peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was
signed by the two state parties in March 1979. The treaty majorly consisted of the United States
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 8
of America's president Jimmy Carters' recommendations at Camp David, which ultimately
successfully ended the conflicts between Egypt and Israel. The bilateral negotiations ended with
Israel's agreement and cooperation with the withdrawal from Sinai. Simultaneously Egypt's
president's promise to create conventional diplomacy between the two countries was highly
accepted by the Israelis prime minister. President Anwar Sadat also promised to allow the Israeli
ships to pass through the Suez Canal (Quandt, 1986).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the negotiator's persuasion tool was used (President Jimmy Carter) to
conduct the bilateral negotiations between the two conflicting countries (Egypt and Israel). In
this case, the bilateral talks involved two negotiating parties in the presence of a joint negotiator.
In the initial stages of the negotiations, direct negotiations were initiated by Egypt's president
when he visited Israel and held talks with Israel's parliament. However, the direct negotiations
were not successful since Israel's prime minister failed to honor his end of the bargain visit to
Egypt to discuss a possible solution to the conflicts between the two countries. Ultimately, the
distributive model of negotiation took effect on March 1979 by considering substantive interests
when both Egypt and Israel leaders agreed to sign the treaty in favor of the two countries'
interests to solve the existing conflicts between them (Quandt, 1986).
THE EGYPTIAN ISRAELI PEACE TREATY OF NEGOTIATIONS 9
REFERENCES
El Baradei, M. (1982). The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and Access to the Gulf of Aqaba: A
New Legal Regime. Am. J. Int'l L., 76, 532. Retrieved from:
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ajil76&div=37&id=&pag
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Elgindy, K. (2012). Egypt, Israel, Palestine. The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, 25. Retrieved
from: https://cdn.thecairoreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CR6-Elgindy.pdf
Fink, J. E. (1995). The Gulf of Aqaba and the Strait of Tiran: The Practice of Freedom of
Navigation after the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. Naval L. Rev., 42, 121. Retrieved
from:
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GIARDINA, A. (1978). The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Agreements and the other international
obligations of the parties. The Italian Yearbook of International Law Online, 4(1), 20-30.
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Middle East Studies, 26(2), 249-266. Retrieved from:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/164735
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234. Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00999643
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Saunders, H. H. (1985). We need a larger theory of negotiation: The importance of pre-
negotiating phases. Negotiation journal, 1(3), 249-262. Retrieved from:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00999646
Sharp, J. M. (2005, June). Egypt-United States Relations. In CRS Issue Brief for Congress (Vol.
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