c David At 20 DR. KENNETH W. STEIN Special to The Jewish News ITI wenty years ago, President Jimmy Carter brokered a his- toric peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. What that pact accomplished is relevant again today as Israel and the Palestinians are embroiled in an emotional peaCe process that America seeks to advance. The twists, turns, and motiva- tions that led to the 1979 treaty were extraordinary; its impact on the countries, the region and American foreign policy have been no less exceptional. In the 1970s, the Arab-Israeli negotiating process enjoyed dedi- cated, knowledgeable, hard-work- ing and imaginative leaders, willing to take calculated political risks. Carter, Egyptian News President Anwar Analysis Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were never timid. Each was capable of manipulating a conversation for his own purposes, each was willing to alienate domestic constituencies for the sake of the greater good as they saw it. While making difficult com- promises, each feverishly protected his country's national interest. Most of all, each understood the historic impact an Egyptian-Israeli peace would have upon the region and its peoples. Though the outstanding issues being negotiated now to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict are admittedly more complicated and sensitive, politi- cal leadership remains wanting. There are too many political managers. There is too little collective vision of where the region should be headed. Carter's National Security Adviser Dr. Kenneth W Stein, William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History and Israeli Studies at Emory University, is author of the soon-to-be published Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace. 3/26 1999 18 Detroit Jewish News The 1979 agreement offers lessons fir today's peace-makers. Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted that the Jerusalem. Both countries have sus- treaty would be contagious. That hasn't tained warm, militarily beneficial and quite happened, but the treaty has inoc- financially rewarding relationships ulated the Middle East against another with Washington. And America's com- outbreak of major war. The result is not mitment to Egypt, coupled with the sufficient but it is adequate. defense of Arab oil producing states Though Sadat was assassinated this decade, has made Washington's before the treaty's completion, his alliances with the Arab world stronger objective of combining war and diplo- and deeper than 20 years ago. macy to regain the Sinai was a success In addition, Arab anger against by the end of the 1980s. For its part, Sadat and Egypt for peace with Israel Israel successfully removed the most has dissipated. And once-uniform militarily powerful Arab state from the Arab state reluctance to deal with circle of countries once unalterably Israel has, because of the Egyptian determined to destroy the precedent, changed. Jewish state. Israel also Above: As President Jimmy Israel has a peace treaty received overt political with Jordan, negotia- Carter beamed, Egypt's recognition of its nation- tions with the Anwar Sadat and Israel's al legitimacy. Palestinians and eco- Menachem Begin agreed America had its pay- nomic or diplomatic to peace in 1979. off, too. Well before the relationships with more collapse of the Soviet than two dozen Arab Union, the United States celebrated its and Moslem states. The Arab League, greatest Cold War success. Egypt's ori- originally established to combat entation turned from Moscow to Zionism and Israel's existence, has lost Washington. its ideological zest. The Arab econom- And despite the cool Israeli- ic boycott of Israel is no longer potent. At the same time, with the Egyptian peace since then, no war has broken out between Cairo and decline in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Cairo's centrality to it, Egypt no longer dominates inter-Arab pol- itics. The treaty relationship changed formal ties, but not informal ones. Some Israelis believe that the diplomatic process started by Sadat is the continuation of the Arab confrontation with Israel through political means. Israel's greatest physical size was immedi- ately after the October War when its physical boundaries went to the Suez Canal, the Jordan River and Golan Heights. When Israel gave up the Sinai, it relinquished strate- gic depth, oil fields, and airfields. Egypt and Israel remain two culturally different societies whose past and future do not easily intersect. Israelis still sustain a measure of distrust for Arabs in general. They do not want Egypt stirring in every negotiating pot it pre- pares with other Arab neighbors. Israel prefers its relationship with Egypt to be like the one the United States enjoys with Canada — an unrealistic expec- tation, at least in the near term. For their part, Egyptians will not haggle over what they consider an Arab right to have Israel withdraw from all territories taken in the June 1967 war. They fear Israel's economic strength and nuclear capability. With some regularity the Egyptian media lambastes Israelis, its leaders and Zionism in harsh and unbecoming language. Cairo believes that every Israeli hesitation in negotiations with the Palestinians is intended to end the negotiations before the establishment of a Palestinian state. No treaty could have overcome those differences in a mere two decades. But the one that was signed 20 years ago today assured one crucial outcome — the relationship between Egypt and Israel may bend, bunit will not break. ❑ Clarification The March 19 story on valvulo- plasty research in India, conduct- ed by Detroit doctors, was writ- ten by Shari S. Cohen.