Benjamin Netanyahu's Rafah evacuation order endangers Egypt-Israel peace treaty
Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat; U.S. President, Jimmy Carter; and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, signing the Camp David Accords on Sept. 17, 1978
The Camp David Accords were the result of thirteen days of talks between Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Beguin, mediated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 1978. These conversations were held at the U.S. presidential residence at Camp David in Maryland in September.
These agreements were aimed at resolving the conflict situation between the State of Israel and the Republic of Egypt, which had led to two recent wars between the two states (in 1967 and 1973) and was part of the Arab-Israeli conflict that began in 1948.
As a result of the Camp David Accords, Sadat and Beguin received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 and signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979.
THE BACKGROUND OF THE CAMP DAVID ACCORDS
After the end of World War II (1939-1945), British rule in Palestine ended in 1948 and Jewish leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, which caused a reaction from the Arab countries of the region. Thus began a history of conflicts and wars that spread over the following decades, including the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973), which pitted Israel against Egypt and its allies, with Israel emerging as the victor in both cases.
In November 1973, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, who had succeeded Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970, re-established diplomatic relations with the U.S. government. This policy was part of his shift in Egypt's international alignment, which in the Nasser years had been oriented toward the Soviet Union and was now beginning to move closer to the United States. Sadat adhered to the "small steps" policy proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, which was to take diplomatic steps toward mutual understanding between Egypt and Israel. U.S. President Jimmy Carter spoke with Sadat about his demand for the recovery of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been left in Israeli hands after the Six Day War, and with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Beguin, who expressed his willingness to talk.
THE SIGNING OF THE CAMP DAVID ACCORDS
Within the framework of the "small steps" policy promoted by Kissinger, the first important step was taken by the Egyptian president, who traveled to Jerusalem on November 19, 1977, and became the first president of an Arab country to visit Israel. However, in order to bring Beguin –a staunch nationalist who was head of the center-right Likud party– to the negotiating table, mediation by the U.S. government was necessary. Jimmy Carter proposed to use Camp David, a summer presidential residence located near Washington (USA), as a venue to bring the two leaders together and achieve some progress in the negotiation. The meetings lasted thirteen days (they began on September 5 and ended on September 17, 1978).
The agreements were signed by Sadat, Beguin and Carter and marked the success of the U.S. government's efforts to bring Israel and Egypt closer together and to try to resolve the Palestinian problem, although this second objective was not achieved in the end
The Camp David Accords were made up of two framework agreements: the first was aimed at achieving a general peace in the Middle East –although it was not achieved– and the second sought the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries. This last one came to fruition with the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty on March 26, 1979.
These agreements revolutionized the political landscape of the Middle East. The United States achieved an important diplomatic triumph, but Egypt was condemned and isolated by the other Arab countries and Sadat was considered by many as a traitor and was assassinated by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group in October 1981. Beguin, on the other hand, continued in office until October 1983, when he resigned due to health problems and international condemnation because he decided on Israeli military intervention in Lebanon.
WHY ARE THESE AGREEMENTS BEING DISCUSSED AGAIN?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict increases tensions between Israel and Egypt due to their proximity and historical rivalry. On this occasion, Israel has ordered the eviction of Rafah, a region south of Gaza, thus forcing thousands of Palestinians into exile in Egypt, the country on the other side of that border. Egypt has informed Israel that it will suspend the Camp David Accords –which put an end to the long conflicts between the two countries– if the Jewish state pressures the Palestinians to cross into the Arab country because of the military offensive.
According to the Saudi channel Al Arabiya, Cairo has already decided to limit communications with Israel to security level only, in order to continue negotiations on the truce agreement and exchange of detainees, while freezing any governmental communication with the Israeli side.
Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the evacuation of Rafah, no steps have been taken in this regard and it is far from clear where he wants to move the population trapped there, as the rest of the Gaza Strip has been practically razed to the ground in the offensive launched by Israel since October 7.
A boy looks at an area destroyed after an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip
RAFAH, THE GREAT DEATH TRAP
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Monday that the entry of Israeli forces into Rafah "would be terrifying" and would lead to an "extremely high" number of civilian casualties, with the prospect of "heinous crimes" being committed by the Israeli army.
Rafah is the last remaining stronghold of the Palestinian Hamas organization in Gaza and Israel is determined to take it with an imminent ground offensive, preceded by the current wave of bombardments. All this despite the fact that more than 1.4 million civilians are crammed into this southernmost Gaza city and the multitude of tent camps in a death trap.
The paradox of the situation is that Israel, when it was bombing the north and center of Gaza, declared Rafah a "safe zone", given its proximity to the Egyptian border, from where aid enters the Strip in dribs and drabs. If in Rafah the situation is desperate, in the rest of Gaza there is only the trace of the destruction wrought by the Israeli army in revenge for the massacre of 1,200 people in its territory by Hamas militiamen on October 7.
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