Lewis and Puder on motivations of Sadat in 1979
Bernard Lewis on Camp David'79
In a long interview to Jerusalem Post:Sadat decided to make peace because he realized that Egypt was becoming a Soviet colony. The process was very visible. There were whole areas of Soviet bases and no Egyptian was admitted. Sadat, I think, realized that on the best estimate of Israel's power and the worst estimate of Israel's intentions, Israel was not a threat to Egypt in the way that the Soviet Union was. So he took the very courageous step of ordering the Soviet specialists out of Egypt, facing the danger they might do what they did in Czechoslovakia or Hungary. They didn't, fortunately. Then he hoped that Washington would help him, instead of which Washington produced the Vance-Gromyko Agreement, a sort of diplomatic carve up, in effect giving Egypt back to the Soviets. That was Carter's real contribution to the peace process. All the rest of it is imaginary; imaginary is the polite word. That persuaded Sadat that he had to go to the Israelis.
This matches perfectly another, more detailed exposition of the same "episode", by Joseph Puder in FrontPageMag:
Carter’s presidency is widely renowned for its crowning achievement, The Camp David Accords, which established a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, was not however, a Carter initiative.
Carter’s intentions and policy commitments were geared towards arranging a Geneva Peace Conference with all the parties to the Arab-Israeli dispute present, in addition to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Carter dispatched Cyrus Vance, his Secretary of State, to Moscow to get the Soviets to co-sponsor the conference. On May 21, 1977, Secretary Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko issued a joint statement that the “elimination of the continued source of tension in the Middle East constitutes one of the primary tasks in ensuring peace and international security.” The statement specified moreover the conviction of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that in order to achieve the goal, “an important role belonged to the Geneva Conference on the Middle East.”
Carter decided to coordinate his Middle East efforts with the Soviets on the premise that keeping them out of the picture could provoke them to undermine any American sponsored moves. This typical Carteresque strategy of appeasing dictatorships and dictators (Carter never met a dictator he did not like) backfired time and again.
In the case of the Geneva Conference, Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s President, who five years earlier expelled the Soviets from Egypt, did not want the Soviets involved in negotiations, much less in a multilateral negotiations. Sadat understood that the Soviets would press the Arabs to be uncompromising (he also knew that Carter would press Israel for concessions) and was turned off by the thought that radical voices in Syria and Iraq would undermine Egypt’s position as the leader of the Arab world.
Sadat was dead-set against going to Geneva. And, in order to scuttle the idea he had to get Israel to reject it.
On November 7, 1977, Anwar Sadat made an historic trip to Jerusalem providing Israelis with one of the most euphoric days in their collective memory. Sadat’s dramatic move and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s personal opposition to Geneva and Soviet participation scuttled the idea of the conference. Carter quickly jumped on the Begin-Sadat bandwagon and the rest is history. It is important to acknowledge that the Camp David Accords - Carter’s premier presidential achievement - happened in spite of his misjudgment.
In a long interview to Jerusalem Post:Sadat decided to make peace because he realized that Egypt was becoming a Soviet colony. The process was very visible. There were whole areas of Soviet bases and no Egyptian was admitted. Sadat, I think, realized that on the best estimate of Israel's power and the worst estimate of Israel's intentions, Israel was not a threat to Egypt in the way that the Soviet Union was. So he took the very courageous step of ordering the Soviet specialists out of Egypt, facing the danger they might do what they did in Czechoslovakia or Hungary. They didn't, fortunately. Then he hoped that Washington would help him, instead of which Washington produced the Vance-Gromyko Agreement, a sort of diplomatic carve up, in effect giving Egypt back to the Soviets. That was Carter's real contribution to the peace process. All the rest of it is imaginary; imaginary is the polite word. That persuaded Sadat that he had to go to the Israelis.
This matches perfectly another, more detailed exposition of the same "episode", by Joseph Puder in FrontPageMag:
Carter’s presidency is widely renowned for its crowning achievement, The Camp David Accords, which established a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, was not however, a Carter initiative.
Carter’s intentions and policy commitments were geared towards arranging a Geneva Peace Conference with all the parties to the Arab-Israeli dispute present, in addition to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Carter dispatched Cyrus Vance, his Secretary of State, to Moscow to get the Soviets to co-sponsor the conference. On May 21, 1977, Secretary Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko issued a joint statement that the “elimination of the continued source of tension in the Middle East constitutes one of the primary tasks in ensuring peace and international security.” The statement specified moreover the conviction of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that in order to achieve the goal, “an important role belonged to the Geneva Conference on the Middle East.”
Carter decided to coordinate his Middle East efforts with the Soviets on the premise that keeping them out of the picture could provoke them to undermine any American sponsored moves. This typical Carteresque strategy of appeasing dictatorships and dictators (Carter never met a dictator he did not like) backfired time and again.
In the case of the Geneva Conference, Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s President, who five years earlier expelled the Soviets from Egypt, did not want the Soviets involved in negotiations, much less in a multilateral negotiations. Sadat understood that the Soviets would press the Arabs to be uncompromising (he also knew that Carter would press Israel for concessions) and was turned off by the thought that radical voices in Syria and Iraq would undermine Egypt’s position as the leader of the Arab world.
Sadat was dead-set against going to Geneva. And, in order to scuttle the idea he had to get Israel to reject it.
On November 7, 1977, Anwar Sadat made an historic trip to Jerusalem providing Israelis with one of the most euphoric days in their collective memory. Sadat’s dramatic move and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s personal opposition to Geneva and Soviet participation scuttled the idea of the conference. Carter quickly jumped on the Begin-Sadat bandwagon and the rest is history. It is important to acknowledge that the Camp David Accords - Carter’s premier presidential achievement - happened in spite of his misjudgment.