HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:

Newly Discovered Nuances to the Camp David Accords

President Carter finds himself obliged to perform “shuttle diplomacy” between principals who refuse to talk directly with each other at Camp David. By dint of sheer persistence, he brings Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to an agreement in October 1978 that a few months later will produce the first peace treaty between Israel and one of its most implacable foes.

American Jews were very nervous about Jimmy Carter and even more nervous about Begin. Both were unknown quantities. Yet it took a man from the right (as it did in America’s recognition of China), with a push from Ariel Sharon of all people, to make the deal with Egypt. Israel would no longer have to worry about an attack coming from the Southwest.

On her recent visit to Beth Tfiloh’s Sagner Auditorium, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reacted with surprise when she learned that Begin had made a condition on his coming to Camp David. Recently declassified documents in the Carter Library and Center in Atlanta reveal that Begin had made President Carter and President Sadat swear never to use the phrase “Palestinian State” or any reference thereto during their talks or in their accords.

Nonetheless, Begin was to come under severe personal criticism by suggesting his agreement to eventual “Palestinian autonomy” —to some, giving away the store, as it were. Carter felt betrayed on what he had taken for promises by Begin to give up the “settlements,” or disputed territories.

In my review of Carter’s briefing papers during the Camp David period, as well as memos from that time to and from his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezizinsky, we can trace the President’s learning curve and see how quick a study he was. After all, in the sheer bluebook sense, Carter was one of the most intelligent of our presidents, personally trained in nuclear submarines by Admiral Rickover.

If he seemed a stranger to American Jewry, American Jewry knew even less about him. The doubts about his commitment to Israel have continued to the present day, inflamed by the use of the term “apartheid” in the title of his latest book, which by the way Mrs. Albright labeled as “abominable"—with some courage while standing before a very pro-Carter crowd in February at the Carter Center, the ex-President himself standing next to her.

So what did Carter know that fall of 1978? He knew that Jews were less than 3 percent of America’s population but had a disproportionately high representation in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. His Chief of Staff provided a list of each member.

He knew that AIPAC had been formed back in 1958 to answer then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’s exasperated query, “Which Jews?” to talk to among the many organizations that claimed to speak for American Jewry. By 1978, AIPAC had few serious challengers to its dominant position.

Carter knew that Jewish money had gone almost as heavily into backing his defeated Republican rival as had gone into Democratic coffers. In fact, far more money had gone into Nixon’s 1974 campaign than into McGovern’s. He had a refresher course on the whole sweep of Jewish history and the creation of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

And he was aware, and skeptical, of the State Department’s long antipathy to Israel as of no strategic interest to the U.S. Of course, he also knew that Nixon’s Secretary of State, Kissinger, had rescued Israel with resupplies and airlifts during the Yom Kippur War.

Since then, the two countries had become almost interdependent, with America serving as the supplier of arms and billions in annual grants from Congress. Yet there was a delicate balancing act with other Middle Eastern states, with arms and money also going to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

And of course we now know how Carter’s support collapsed. Thanks in large part to back-channel manipulations by supporters of the Reagan candidacy, Carter himself was held hostage to the hostage crisis in Iran after the Shah had been overthrown. He lost his bid for re-election despite nearly bringing off real peace in the Middle East. He could at least console himself with a Nobel Peace Prize.

Nonetheless, few would disagree with the assertion that he has been our greatest ex-President since John Quincy Adams, even after apologizing for his breach of decorum in referring to the current Administration as “the worst in our history.”