On December 29, former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100. As the 39th President of the United States and a private citizen, Carter advocated for peace among nations, democracy, and a variety of humanitarian and environmental causes. But in the Middle East he will be remembered as the father of Arab-Israeli normalization.
After taking office as president in 1977, Carter was given the opportunity by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to engineer the first normalization agreement between an Arab state and a Zionist state. He helped Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin negotiate the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which formally ended the conflict between the two countries.
As developments over the past four decades have shown, neither agreement nor treaty has led to peace and justice in the Middle East. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem and has launched a genocidal war in the Gaza Strip. Palestine still does not have an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. And the overwhelming majority of the Arab public does not recognize Israel or agree to normalize relations with Israel.
Looking back on the agreement brokered by Carter, it is clear that although it was not publicly acknowledged, it was the slow, gradual beginning of an American campaign to force Arab officials to abandon the Palestinian cause and bury Palestinian national aspirations.
Camp David’s Legacy
The Camp David Accords were, among other things, a roadmap toward complete peace between Egypt and Israel, Egypt’s full recognition of Israel, and an end to Egypt’s participation in the Arab economic boycott of Israel. To be sure, this agreement was merely a framework for negotiations between the two countries that would lead to the signing of a peace treaty a few months later.
But it also included provisions related to the Palestinian people, the language of which indicated the ultimate purpose of the agreement. The document outlined plans to provide ‘autonomy’ to the ‘residents’ of the occupied territories, as if Palestinians were aliens living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At the time, the United States had not yet recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The agreement therefore called for the election of “autonomous bodies” for the occupied territories. But its autonomy and elected authority were subject to oversight by Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, a clear violation of the Palestinians’ right to form an independent national government.
Throughout the 1980s, US-backed Israeli opposition prevented the Palestinians from playing a role in devising peace plans for the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts. However, after the First Intifada broke out in December 1987 and Jordan gave up its claims to the West Bank in 1988, it became clear that Palestine could no longer be ignored in peace negotiations.
However, Palestinians who attended the 1991 Madrid conference only participated as part of the Jordanian delegation, once again denying their nationality.
As with other iterations of the U.S.-led and sponsored “peace process,” Madrid’s path has reached a stalemate as Israel continues to ignore Palestinian national rights and refuses any discussion of ending the occupation. After Labor came to power in the 1992 Israeli elections, the United States led the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, which created the Palestinian National Authority (PA). As a government formed for the Palestinians, the PA had to recognize Israel’s right to exist before securing formal Israeli recognition of Palestinian grievances and national aspirations.
Jordan was forced to sign a peace treaty with Israel, becoming the second Arab country after Egypt to recognize the Zionist state. The only thing that Amman was able to preserve in its relations with Palestine was its control over Jerusalem’s religious sites. Today, this status is constantly challenged by Israeli authorities.
Abraham Accords
Throughout the so-called “peace process” initiated by the Camp David Accords, the United States encouraged Arab countries to consider their own interests separately from those of the Palestinians. This encouragement became a full-fledged campaign during Donald Trump’s presidency, and he, along with his administration’s lieutenants, demonstrated more than the usual American prejudice against the Zionist state.
In 2020, Trump presided over the signing of the so-called Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Sudan joined the following year.
All the Arab states involved have argued that normalizing relations with Israel will help improve the lives of the Palestinian people and should not be seen as abandoning them, but in fact all of them do not take Palestinian interests into account and give something in return for recognizing Israel. It means that you got it.
The UAE’s normalization with Israel appears to be the fastest and deepest. The two countries have rapidly developed and expanded their military and economic relations. Bahrain has aimed to leverage its relationship with Israel as a defense against an aggressive Iran. Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara has been recognized by the United States. And Sudan could be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
To be sure, the Abraham Accords were nothing more than a deal that promoted the interests of the signatories at the expense of the Palestinian cause, allowing Israel to deepen its policy of apartheid and strengthen its occupation of Palestinian lands.
And it is not difficult to see a strong desire in the incoming Trump administration to expand the map of Arab normalization with Israel, for example, to include Saudi Arabia. As was the case with previous normalization agreements, the Palestinians will be the last to expect dividends from increased Arab openness toward Israel.
Welcome a change of heart
Even after his term as president ended, Carter continued his efforts for peace between Palestine and Israel. But the more he observed the situation on the ground, the more he became convinced that America’s policy of unwavering support for Israel was wrong and counterproductive.
Therefore, in 2007, he published the book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, declaring that Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories amount to the crime of apartheid. This was a welcome change of heart from long-held beliefs among many American politicians and opinion makers. Carter remains the only prominent American politician brave enough to call Israel’s policies and practices by their proper names.
As Americans mourn his death and remember his legacy, it is important to reflect on America’s disastrous policies toward Palestine. Over the past 40 years, Israel’s occupation has become increasingly violent, thanks to unconditional support from the United States.
Now is the time for the United States to revise its stance on Israel and Palestine. A reversal of U.S. policy toward Palestine, recognizing Palestinian rights and holding Israel accountable for its crimes, is probably what Jimmy Carter has wanted to see all his life.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
