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After coming to power in Egypt in late 1970,
President Anwar Sadat indicated to UN envoy Gunnar Jarring
that he was willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel in
exchange for the return of Egyptian territory lost in 1967
(the Sinai Peninsula). When this overture was ignored by Israel
and the US, Egypt and Syria decided to act to break the political
stalemate. They attacked Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula
and the Golan Heights in October 1973, on the Jewish holy day
of Yom Kippur. The surprise attack caught Israel off guard,
and the Arabs achieved some early military victories. This
prompted American political intervention, along with sharply
increased military aid to Israel. After the war, US Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger pursued a diplomatic strategy of limited
bilateral agreements to secure partial Israeli withdrawals
from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights while avoiding
negotiations on more difficult issues, including the fate of
the West Bank and Gaza. By late 1975 these efforts had exhausted
their potential, and there was no prospect of achieving a comprehensive
Arab-Israeli peace settlement.
In late 1977, Sadat decided to initiate a separate
overture to Israel. His visit to Jerusalem on November 19,
1977 led to the Camp David accords and the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty in 1979. |
