Hassan Nafaa* revisits the probable and improbable in Egypt's peace with Israel It is 25 years since the Camp David accords provided a framework for the peace process on the Palestinian and Egyptian tracks, the fruit of a sudden and unconventional initiative that was due largely to the courage and perspicacity of a man whom fate had destined to assume power in the largest Arab nation. But when President Anwar El-Sadat undertook his visit to Jerusalem and subsequently signed the Camp David accords on behalf of Egypt in 1978 he failed to anticipate the reactions this would trigger in the Arab world at official, intellectual and grassroots levels. In the interplay between the political course set by the Egyptian president and the angry and confused responses of Arab leaders and peoples it sometimes appeared that the Arab world had been cast adrift . Although a quarter of a century has passed since those momentous events first shook the region -- and although they still inform developments today -- they have yet to be subject to an objective evaluation. Trends of thought in the Arab world are still rooted in their old ideological and partisan trenches: it is as if nothing has been learned from the storms that have swept the region in the past 25 years. When the subject is broached tempers quickly flare and any attempt at a serious discussion disintegrates rapidly into tribal warfare in the Arab manner. Accusations are hurled back and forth: supporters of Sadat and his initiative are branded as anti-Nasserist while critics of Camp David are automatically charged with being against Egyptian interests and resentful of the liberation of Sinai. But the issues involved are far too important to be reduced to fodder in the battle of wills between pro- and anti-Sadat, or pro- and anti-Arab nationalist, camps. The Arab world must eventually put the events of the past quarter of a century under a microscope and subject them to minute dissection. The late writer and journalist Ahmed Bahaaeddin was always keen on reminding us of the axiomatic truth that history is the memory of living peoples and nations. He used to liken people who failed to learn the lessons of experience to mice forever attempting to snatch the same piece of cheese from the same trap. It is an image that returned to haunt me as I was readying myself to write on the 25th anniversary of the Camp David accords. Perhaps it was because I have been among one of their most outspoken critics: 20 years ago the Centre for Arab Unity Studies published my work Egypt and the Arab-Israeli conflict: From inevitable conflict to impossible settlement. My objection to the accords had nothing to do with my position towards the Sadat regime, or to an ideological bias favouring Arab over Egyptian national interests. Rather, it was rooted in something else entirely: the conviction that the course Sadat had adopted for managing the conflict with Israel would lead not to a just and comprehensive peace but would propel the region into a period of instability the main beneficiary of which would be Israel. Before revisiting Camp David I felt compelled to return to my earlier writings to locate flaws in my approach and conclusions. I was depressed to find little to revise. I would have preferred to have located a pivotal issue in subsequent events that might have served as a key to a process of reassessment and correction. Apart from details, however, I only found things to reinforce my earlier convictions. One cannot help but wonder what would have transpired had the Arabs reacted differently to Sadat's visit to Jerusalem and accepted the invitation that was extended even to the PLO to attend the Mena House conference in Cairo. Domestic, regional and international circumstances obviated against any such participation and that Sadat was perfectly aware of that fact. Nevertheless, the Arabs' non-participation was a tactical error. On the one hand it enabled Sadat to exploit their refusal, using the charge that the Arabs were obstructing the possibility of a comprehensive settlement in order to justify his push for a separate solution. On the other it gave Israel the opportunity to deal with Egypt separately and dodge any legal commitment to a comprehensive settlement. By participating in Mena House the Arabs would have put both Sadat and Israel in a corner. Israel would have refused to enter into negotiations with a Palestinian liberation organisation it branded as terrorist but that Egypt regarded as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Simultaneously, Sadat would not have been able to justify his determination to pursue a separate solution when the Arabs were demonstrating a willingness to negotiate and explore the bases of a collective solution. There would thus have been one of two alternatives, both of which would have been better for Egypt and the Arab world. Either the talks would have collapsed and Egypt's position would have remained consistent with that of the Arabs, or Israel would have been forced to enter into negotiations with the Arabs collectively. Although the question of what would have happened had the Arabs agreed to take part in the Mena House conference is purely academic. Israel's behaviour over the past quarter of a century leaves no shadow of a doubt that Israel would have preferred the negotiations to collapse rather than return to its pre-1967 borders and see the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The second issue concerns the gap between Egypt's official position on a settlement, as reflected in the speech Sadat delivered in Jerusalem, and the agreements signed in Camp David. In what was probably the most eloquent and forceful speech of his career, Sadat said that he had not come to Israel looking for a separate peace for Egypt because the crux of the Middle East conflict was not between Egypt and Israel. Rather, his quest was to explore the opportunity for a comprehensive settlement, the basis of which would be a final resolution to the Palestinian cause which could only be accomplished through the creation of an independent Palestinian state on all Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. The documents Sadat signed, however, were another thing altogether. The agreement on the Palestinian track called for self-rule for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza for a five-year interim period during which Israel would retain full sovereignty over the territory. No reference was made to the Palestinians' right to self-determination or to the possibility that administrative self-rule would eventually evolve into an independent Palestinian state. Naturally the Palestinians could not accept such an agreement, all the more so since Sadat was unable to include a provision explicitly obliging Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza during the interim period. So what was it that drove Sadat to conclude a final peace with Israel? One would have imagined that he would have been deterred by Israeli intransigence, a phenomenon with which he was fully aware, having experienced it first hand during the Camp David accords and having observed it in the secret negotiations in Rabat between Hassan El-Tohami and Moshe Dayan that preceded his visit to Jerusalem. Most likely he imagined his success in establishing special relations with the US and his affirmation that the pursuit of a peaceful settlement had become the strategic, rather than the tactical, choice of the largest Arab nation would create an impetus capable of generating a radical change in the attitude of the Israeli public towards a settlement and that this change would ultimately allow for the realisation of the minimum level of Arab rights. No one can predict how Sadat would have reacted had he lived to see Israel invade Lebanon and besiege an Arab capital for the first time in the history of the conflict, or refuse to withdraw from Taba. What is certain, however, is that in the light of Israeli, US and Arab behaviour over the past 25 years one can only conclude that the premises upon which Sadat based his strategy were wrong. Israel and the US were never interested in pursuing the possibility of a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause, but solely in using the peace process as a means to redraw the regional map in a manner that suited their interests. Moreover, to have placed his stakes on a radical shift in opinion inside Israel or the US, instead of on the autonomous capacities of the Arabs, and the Egyptians in particular, was a wager destined to be forfeit. An Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement might have marked a turning point in the direction of a comprehensive settlement had two conditions been met. The first was to take advantage of the "peace" in order to tip the balance of power with Israel more in Egypt's favour. Instead, however, the opposite occurred. Israel gained greater advantages from its treaty with Egypt than Egypt did and the result is that the power gap between Israel and Egypt and Israel and the Arabs has increased in favour of Israel, rather than the reverse. Secondly, Egypt should have taken advantage of its special relations with the US to weaken the bond between the US and Israel, or at least neutralise the impact of this factor on the Middle East conflict. Instead, Israel has been able to turn Egyptian-US relations to its advantage and generate an even greater bias in the US in favour of Israeli positions. Against this dismal background it has become apparent that if the Arabs are to reach a settlement with Israel conducive to a minimal level of their rights and interests they must search for a way to activate autonomous resources. Little, if any, work is being done in this direction. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
